Hacking USB Corruption in Wii

[PinkJuri]

My USB stick corrupted last night while still in my Wii and I can't figure out what caused it because during the entire day it was working beforehand when I played the 20XX iso until around 8 when I went to load up Nintendont again and got an error that folder USB/games didn't exist and as I'm typing this, my stick only has one file of 0kb called [USBC°└¡.] (no brackets), despite Windows showing that about 17 GB of data is still on it. Help?

Notes:
-USB is a SanDisk 64 GB Cruzer Dial drive
-Wii was purchased in 2008

EDIT: Windows attempted to scan and fix it but only ended up deleting the empty file

 

[DinohScene]

I've had that happen to a USB drive on me 360 as well.
I believe it's a sign of failure from the USB drive itself as all other drives worked perfectly fine.

 

[migles]

My USB stick corrupted last night while still in my Wii and I can't figure out what caused it because during the entire day it was working beforehand when I played the 20XX iso until around 8 when I went to load up Nintendont again and got an error that folder USB/games didn't exist and as I'm typing this, my stick only has one file of 0kb called [USBC°└¡.] (no brackets), despite Windows showing that about 17 GB of data is still on it. Help?

Notes:
-USB is a SanDisk 64 GB Cruzer Dial drive
-Wii was purchased in 2008

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Miscellaneous/H2testw.shtml

format it, use that tool to test it, tool name is h2testw
if you get a "corrupted error", your should look to replace your drive or if you bought recently, warranty it
if the testing passes without errors very likely it's either software side or user error (like removing the stick without safetly eject)

 

[PinkJuri]

I've had that happen to a USB drive on me 360 as well.
I believe it's a sign of failure from the USB drive itself as all other drives worked perfectly fine.

I see, I'm guessing I need to format it then?

EDIT: I'll test it with what Migles linked

 

[DinohScene]

If me suspicions are correct then don't bother.
You can format it over and over again if you like but I wouldn't trust the drive at all anymore.
Basically, if a USB drive corrupts once for no reason, it'll corrupt again and again.
Better get a new one.

Feel free to format it (not quick format) and try it again.
If it corrupts again in the same fashion then try a different one.

 

[PinkJuri]

If me suspicions are correct then don't bother.
You can format it over and over again if you like but I wouldn't trust the drive at all anymore.
Basically, if a USB drive corrupts once for no reason, it'll corrupt again and again.
Better get a new one.

Feel free to format it (not quick format) and try it again.
If it corrupts again in the same fashion then try a different one.

It's only a couple months old and I'm hoping that's not the case but I guess if it is, I know what to get on Christmas

 

[DinohScene]

If it's a couple of months old, try returning it.
Store warranty n what not.

Just tell them that it doesn't work and you want a replacement.

 

[migles]

If me suspicions are correct then don't bother.
You can format it over and over again if you like but I wouldn't trust the drive at all anymore.
Basically, if a USB drive corrupts once for no reason, it'll corrupt again and again.
Better get a new one.

Feel free to format it (not quick format) and try it again.
If it corrupts again in the same fashion then try a different one.

got one older stick silently corupting stuff, i used that stick for windows installations, i couldn't figure out why it was always failing middle install, everytime i copied stuff into it, seemed ok, no errors and filenames correct etc.. i assumed something went wrong with the process of windows and blamed my pc it was only when i put a bunch of music in it the music was starting to skip, and pictures appeared with weird artifacts i noticed something was wrong with that stick, i could move stuff into the stick and out of the stick just fine, there were no windows warnings or filesystem errors, nothing.. the OS would not see something wrong...
only whit a file integrity checker (writing files and check if they are read back ok) like that tool confirmed the stick was bad..
that's why i always say to test flash storage with h2testw or at least copy stuff into it and md5 check it

 

[PinkJuri]

If it's a couple of months old, try returning it.
Store warranty n what not.

Just tell them that it doesn't work and you want a replacement.

Good thing I kept the receipt

 

[DinohScene]

got one older stick silently corupting stuff, i used that stick for windows installations, i couldn't figure out why it was always failing middle install, everytime i copied stuff into it, seemed ok, no errors and filenames correct etc.. i assumed something went wrong with the process of windows and blamed my pc it was only when i put a bunch of music in it the music was starting to skip, and pictures appeared with weird artifacts i noticed something was wrong with that stick, i could move stuff into the stick and out of the stick just fine, there were no windows warnings or filesystem errors, nothing.. the OS would not see something wrong...
only whit a file integrity checker (writing files and check if they are read back ok) like that tool confirmed the stick was bad..
that's why i always say to test flash storage with h2testw or at least copy stuff into it and md5 check it

h2testw is indeed a good tool to check if a SD card isn't counterfeit and if the NAND flash is still in tact.
I've used it on so many storage media.

Good thing I kept the receipt

Good luck returning it.
Hope you get a new one!

 

[PinkJuri]

h2testw is indeed a good tool to check if a SD card isn't counterfeit and if the NAND flash is still in tact.
I've used it on so many storage media.



Good luck returning it.
Hope you get a new one!

Thank you, and also thank you both for the help!

 

[GreyWolf]

If anyone is interested in what could be the cause of flash drives suddenly dying, etc. this is an explanation of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory#Read_disturb

Yes, even just reading from the drive can eventually corrupt it.

 

[PinkJuri]

I wanted to report that after a good amount of attempts, the USB works after formatting countless times to exFAT and then using 3rd party software to get it to FAT32

 

[Cyan]

just something nobody mentioned so far :
The FAT (file allocation table) can become corrupt if any write attempt crashes before the table is correctly written (example : crash, freeze, manual unplug without safe remove option, etc.)
the FAT32 has 2 FAT (2 tables) but I don't know how it works internally, if both are updated at the same time or if one is used as backup in case the first one is corrupted, and I don't know how to access the backup instead of the main one.

If Nintendont crashed while it was writing the savegame to the SD, you can expect your problem to be caused by the nintendont's crash. (it's not nintendont's fault, it's the crash's fault)
it can happen at nintendont launch (it writes/updates the meta.xml file, if missing or version written inside is older), and at exit (writing savegame to emulated memory card file).
logging the errors could be helpful, but logging to device is useless if your FAT is unreadable.

Many users already had that problem.
It could be prevented at launch, by removing the auto-generate meta.xml file, but you need the savegame to be stored to your device at exit.
You can only hope it doesn't crash/freeze again in the future.