Hacking USB 3.0 + Wii = No Worky

[gamecaptor]

I usually buy the Western Digital My Passport Essentials for Wii’s to load off USB. Recently WD has switched to USB 3.0 with “100% USB 2.0 Compatibility”. While that might be true for PCs, not so much for Wii’s. I’ve tried three of the new USB 3.0 drives on different Wii’s and they don’t care for them one bit. I would venture to guess that any/all future USB 3.0 devices will fall into the same realm.

On a side note, another interesting fact I discovered about USB 3.0 devices on a computer is that you cannot have more than one of the SAME USB 3.0 device on a USB 2.0 controller. It has something with the way it’s setting up the compatibility that the PC sees the drives as the exact same drive, which cancels each other out (very odd problem indeed). Unfortunately I don’t have a USB 3.0 board/controller to see if this is purely a USB 2.0 only problem or not.

 

[Pyrate02]

The Passport drives gave me errors in loading up with ISO files due to the built in crapware that WD put on. I could not completely disable the crapware. I use WD elements portable now and they work great.

Are you sure its the USB 3.0 issue and not the crapware?

 

[dun4cheap]

I just purchased one and I am able to get the fat32 going. The NTFS part is hit and miss. I am able to see the games with CFG v61 249, but when I try to load the game it goes to frag and errors. I was going to try the v7 channel tonight with v61 mload 222 which is what I have been using on my other drives without problems.

 

[shamiko_]

you should reformat the HDD to get rid of the "crap-ware" WD oput in (if you don't need to use the utills they put in)

 

[gamecaptor]

I always format a drive to get ride of the crap. I tried them with FAT32, NTFS and WBFS partitions and had no love.

 

[XFlak]

WD has a live CD build into the firmware (so when u plug in the hard drive into your PC its like you plugged in 2 devices, the hard drive and the WD live CD), u may want to install their WD software to disable the live CD and also to disable the sleep timer... other than that, I agree, their software is pointless.

The issue of not being able to plug in more than 1 of the same HDD has nothing to do with USB 3.0. I've had this happen to me 2 or 3 times with USB2.0 WD hard drives. This can easily be fixed by changing the drive signature of one of the hard drives. You can do this by running a cmd window in windows as an administrator then entering in a few commands. I have the commands saved at home, but if u google how to change the drive signature of a hard drive, u will probably find some good instructions like I did. If after a day or so u still can't figure it out, send me a PM and just remind me about this post and ask me to share the instructions I have.

Re. USB3.0 not working on the Wii... that sucks! I just got a hard drive with USB 3.0 delivered to me yesterday, I will try it out and let u know if it works using the USB 3.0 cable.

The beauty of my USB 3.0 hard drive, is that it's a Seagate GoFlex Upgradable hard drive. Meaning I can remove the USB3.0 connector and insert a standard USB2.0 connector, or even esata. So if the Wii doesn't work with my USB3.0 cable, I can just use a standard USB2.0 cable and it will work for sure! I love these GoFlex upgrade cables, they even allow u to plug a hard drive withOUT an enclosure into a Wii/PC using USB2.0, USB3.0, eSATA, firewire, etc. So if u want cheap storage, u can just buy a HDD without a case and use the GoFlex cables to plug in the hard drive directly without needing an enclosure!

Here's a link to the drives I'm talking about, and in my opinion, these are the best portable drives on the market today... but FYI, they're cheaper through newegg.com or newegg.ca
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/...able-hard-drive

 

[Cyan]

Zorglub tested the new WD usb3.0
it's a cIOS issue.
here are his results with usbloaderGX:

For anybody that bought one of those new WD mypassport USB3/USB2 drives:
It won't work with 222 v4 or v5.1.
My working setup for now is r20 249,57 globally and hermes v5.1 223,37 for some games.

 

[ToneEQ]

On a side note, another interesting fact I discovered about USB 3.0 devices on a computer is that you cannot have more than one of the SAME USB 3.0 device on a USB 2.0 controller. It has something with the way it’s setting up the compatibility that the PC sees the drives as the exact same drive, which cancels each other out (very odd problem indeed). Unfortunately I don’t have a USB 3.0 board/controller to see if this is purely a USB 2.0 only problem or not.

I had the same problem with 2 identical 500Gb WD Passport Essential drives. I tried one on an onboard port and one on a PCI card port (that uses a different chipset) to no avail.

 

[XFlak]

did u read my post above explaining how to fix that problem?

 

[VashTS]

i had the same problem with 2 drives it was 2 identical WD 1tbs. heres something weird that i found. the two drives worked fine in windows xp, but windows 7 will only recognize 1, the other is seen, but its labeled with a "*". if you plug both drives in then open up EASEUS partition manager it will see them, but only 1 is usable.

@xflak, thanks for that tip about the drives. may be help in the future for me.

 

[XFlak]

here's a link to the guide I found helpful when changing one of the drive disc signatures
http://www.howtohaven.com/system/change-disk-signature.shtml

here are some other helpful links:

convert hex to decimal
http://www.easycalculation.com/hex-converter.php

convert decimal+1 back to hex
http://www.easycalculation.com/decimal-converter.php

 

[DR_HAMMER]

I bought a TEVION 500 GB (USB 1, 1.1, 2, 3 compatibility) from Aldi.

And my experience after hours testing is following:

• Clone drive with pc no problem
• Bootup CFG & GX Loader hangs sometimes
• Never managed to startup a game in CFG loader further than the health screen, mostly it stucks while loading the IOS
• GX Loader seems to be the same but if I wait 5 secs after starting GX loader I sometimes be able to launch a game and play it
• GX loader seems to be more compatible with USB 3.0 drives
• When the wii hangs, it looks like the drives has been powered off
• After the first 3 seconds of initialing the drive in CFG loader, the drive isn't responsive anymore mostly, results in a freeze

To make sure that this problems aren't from my wii, I also tried it with a normal USB 2.0 disk and it works like a charm.

 

[XFlak]

My results using the SeaGate 1.5 TB Hard Drive

Using USB 3.0, the drive is only recognized occasionally, but I was able to boot a game from configurable usb-loader. The loaders "Return to" feature didn't work though, after booting a game, I would have to unplug the HDD and plug it back in before the Wii is able to recognize the drive again

Using the same drive, I plugged in a USB2.0 cable instead of USB3.0 (most hard drives can't do this, but the seagate goflex is so customizable... it's so awesome), and it worked perfectly!

 

[sdoc96]

i had the same problem with 2 drives it was 2 identical WD 1tbs. heres something weird that i found. the two drives worked fine in windows xp, but windows 7 will only recognize 1, the other is seen, but its labeled with a "*". if you plug both drives in then open up EASEUS partition manager it will see them, but only 1 is usable.

@xflak, thanks for that tip about the drives. may be help in the future for me.

Sorry to go OT, but there is an easier fix in Win7.
Go to Disk Management, you will see your drive that is 'offline'. ("This disk is offline because it has a signature collision with another disk.")
Simply right click on the left box (where it says offline) and select 'Online'.

 

[qrab]

Using the same drive, I plugged in a USB2.0 cable instead of USB3.0 (most hard drives can't do this, but the seagate goflex is so customizable... it's so awesome), and it worked perfectly!

i've had success running usb loaders with the included usb3.0 cable, but my emulators have a heck of a time, usually failing to even acknowledge the drive's presence. do you suppose a usb2.0 cable would alleviate this issue?

 

[brausm08]

I hate to bump this thread seeing as though it's several weeks unconscious, but here's my experience with one USB3.0 HDD....

I had 3 WII’s in the house yesterday (all configured the same more or less); the two with prior HDDs recognized it immediately and at all of several boots each; the newly modded one needed some prodding initially (as all wiis do initially it seems, USB3.0 or not), but has recognized it after every boot since. tried it with 250WiiFlow2.1/Mplayer/WiiMC/the emulatorGX family, and the configuration below (also in my sig)….

The drive: 2TB Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk USB3.0 (3.5” externally powered - model 9ZQAN1-570)…using only the stock USB3.0 cable...purchased at the local Wal-Mart for $90.

The Wii’s: 4.2U; Bootmii/boot2 (v0.8); HBC/58 (v1.0.8); priiloader v0.6 (one wii has v0.5); 202v5[57]; Hermes v5.1 (38/37/57 respectively); 236; 249v17; 250v20[57]; DarkCORPv1.1 (one wii has most current IOSes/no CORP)

i'll do a bit more testing, but honestly, i don't foresee this particular model of USB3.0 drive behaving any differently than any USB2.0 HDD i've ever tried....

 

[GolfDude]

i have a 1 TB combo usb 2 and 3 hard drive using NTFS and it works with my wii no issues

 

[Bunie]

USB's have been and always will be 100% backwards compatible. If your wii has problems with your hard drive, your hard drive may use different instruction (aka drivers) than a standard usb hdd.

 

[mrlazar]

I have 4 of the WD passport essentials SE USB 3.0 drive, and they all work with my Wiis 4.2U and 4.3U. To get my computer to recognize mort than one drive ij Windows 7, I had to go to disk management and bring the drive online. Search for "How to initialize or write a signature to a secondary hard drive" in the Western Digital knowledge base.

 

[obcd]

This discussion about the WD essential drives has been made elsewhere already.

Some work, others don't and others work sometime.

Long story short, stay away from them unless you like gambling.

Read a few articles on their support forum if this doesn't convince you.