Hacking USB Loader GX

[ClockWorK]

@Cyan
I'm an NTFS guy. I was just trying WBFS when I couldn't get the 3TB NTFS to work. I'm now happily at 3TB NTFS.

@Dimok
I understand completely. I'm doing some googling to find a tool to check the sector size. I don't see the option in diskpart, or in Disk Management. Maybe my BIOS can tell me, or I'll look for some partition software. Wii Backup Manager seemed to think I could format the drive as 3TB WBFS and hold something like 4048 games, but I don't know if it was reading the physical sector size to determine that.


Thanx for all the info and support.

 

[BryceOne]

I've been using EmulatedNANDs on USBLoaderGX for many of my saved games. The NAND is currently on my SD card. Yesterday, when I ran a few games, some of the saves were corrupted. This could be because i am using them from the SD card (because they worked previously). My USB HDD is set up in 2 partitions, FAT32, and NTFS. I have WBFS folders on each partition with games installed on each. I read awhile back you can't use the NAND on the same USB HDD that you are running your games from. Is this still the case?

 

[dimok]

If the drive is >2.2TB, isn't the sector's size required to be 4kb?
or is it only if the drive is >3TB?

You can calculate the limit yourself. The maximum sector offset is the maximum 32 bit value (4294967295 sectors). Now take that with the sector size 4294967295 * 512 = 2199023255040 (2048GB). That's the exact maximum amount of bytes supported. To support larger numbers the implementation has to be changed to use 64 bit sector offsets . So now you can see why larger physical sector sizes support larger drives right?

 

[norbyte]

Hey dimok,
I also play with the nand emulation feature and ran into some minor problems. The nand was dumped by GX on SD card (including savegames) and has been moved by me to usb. I also configured GX to use the nand off the usb drive. Works perfect. The nand emulation property was set to partial. I could also use this usb drive on another wii (same GX version, nearly same config, same cIOS) and games were loaded. BUT after exiting a game (HOME button > Wii menu) the wii runs into a black screen. Without nand emulation, wii returns to system menu without problems.

Is there a limit / problem with foreign nands? I thought "partial emulation" means only savegames are emulated.

 

[dimok]

Sounds to me like a problem with the "Return To" option. Did you have the forwarder installed on the other Wii or did you turn the option off? The return to on partial nand emulation was fixed in some of the d2x v7 alpha versions but i am not sure in which. If you happen to have one where it is not fixed yet that might be the problem. Partial emulation is not only saves, it is the /title/ path on the nand including the installed forwarder/channels/ios/... in it.

 

[Moeca10]

Is it a common problem that the USB loader can't find my hard drive on the first try after i boot the Wii console? I usually have to reinsert the hdd, and then it works.
It's not a biggy, but it would be nice to avoid it.

 

[Cyan]

It seems it's a new problem since version 2.3 (try using 2.2, but you won't have all new features and fixes ).
You can try other versions (beta), not only the official releases, until you find a working version for your drive.

We didn't change anything from the drive detection so it should be a problem in the used libraries. Maybe it was fixed.
On latest beta we are using devkipt PPC rev21 again (PPCr24 is buggy and give black screens on game launch).

 

[norbyte]

Sounds to me like a problem with the "Return To" option. Did you have the forwarder installed on the other Wii or did you turn the option off? The return to on partial nand emulation was fixed in some of the d2x v7 alpha versions but i am not sure in which. If you happen to have one where it is not fixed yet that might be the problem. Partial emulation is not only saves, it is the /title/ path on the nand including the installed forwarder/channels/ios/... in it.

Yes, thanks for the advice. The original wii does not have the forwarder channel, whereas the other one has that channel installed. I will install that channel on my wii too.
So partial emulation will only emulate /title/? Is it save to remove the other nand folders? I will not use full emulation at any time.

 

[Cyan]

You mean "safe" ?

Yes it's safe to remove all other folders from the emuNAND, it will create the required files or folders if missing.

If I remember, the partial redirect /title/ and /sys/uid.sys

 

[norbyte]

Thanks again. Yes, "safe" is what I meant. Damn false friends.

 

[bobnabob]

This is perhaps a noob question, but once d2xv7 comes out will I be able to, using the nand emulation on USB loader gx, download DLC for games, say rock band for example, onto my SDHC card? Or will this only house saved games and whatnot?

Another even more noob question. Is wiiware support planned for the nand emu or just for use with wii backups?

 

[Cyan]

WiiWare and VC support is already added in the latest beta of USBloaderGX (released past the v2.3).
It will require D2x v7.

We are in the process of adding a better menu switching from games/channels/RealNand/EmuNand and maybe even a new mode WiiMenu-like.

I don't know about the DLC, I don't have Rockband to test.
You should read/ask in the d2x topic instead.

 

[bobnabob]

Thanks Cyan! I can see by browsing this thread that you've always been helpful to and patient with noobs like me so on behalf of us all, thanks!

 

[norbyte]

Cool new features! Thanks! But I think I found a minor bug in GX 2.3, which I could reproduce twice: After applying a new theme, the current screen is decorated with the new theme, GX seems to hang (but no freeze yet). You can click any button, nothing happens and GX freezes. Tried with themes "WiiXplorer" and "Spiffy", both are downloaded via theme downloader.

 

[scikoolaid]

I need alittle help determining how to get the my usb loader gx working again.
I stupidly updated usb loader gx from I think r922 or so (not sure) to the newest one.

When I load up the usb loader gx and it initializes everything but once it 'finds' the harddrive, it will say " Error ! USB Device not found" and force me to click ok and it closes the loader.

I had since gone crazy trying to find a rev I was originally on but the few around the 922 area I got to load up, they had the 3 tabed settings design (which I never seen before, and has even less options than I used to have as well as very few settings for launching games). Maybe I used to have r968 or something?

So for the past hours I pretty much went with wii mod updating stuff based on my syscheck, I am still on firmware 3.4U, i have ios58 among other things and most up to date cios 223, 224, 249(d2xv6), 250(d2xv6)

If it helps determine what rev i used to be on ( assuming I can use an old rev with these new cios) two things: I never seen the 3 tabbed settings design on GX before (as mentioned already), and my box art folders,themes,disc images were in different spots before updating, and had to be moved or the loader had to be told where to look.

Anything would greatly be appreciated!

 

[Cyan]

humm, there's no tab in USBloaderGX.
Maybe you are not using the correct word for what you want to talk.
(Or maybe you found a Modded version, not an official one? there were some developers who made a different version but I never tested them)

About finding back the revision you used, all revision of the loader work with older cIOS so it's not helping.
One good old revision was r938.


You seems to know how to find/download beta versions, so maybe you could try the latest beta ?
The r1133 adds the ability to fallback in channel mode if no HDD is detected, and allow you to (re)mount the HDD later by going into the settings>Loader settings>Loader type: Game (instead of channel).
If the HDD is not initialized it will be loaded. (don't go to the HDD menu if no HDD are initialized yet. I'll have to test it and add a check to prevent code dump).


I don't know why the v2.3 has more problem with HDD initialization (maybe related to libogc?), for the r1333 we went back to devkitPPC r21 so maybe it will help you in HDD detection screen.

 

[scikoolaid]

The tabs I was mentioning are where in GX settings, you get 3 pages of settings on top of each other, you can navigate by pressing left or right and think of firefox browser tabs but instead of on the top, in GX they were on the left. Kinda like that.

r938 does sound familiar too, good to know that older cIOS would still be ok. seeing all the new approaches to making things work in the scene gave me the feeling that maybe I was suffering from old to new coding compatibilities.

I got fed up with trying to isolate the issue of what was making GX not work correctly or wasting my time trying to see if my harddrive was now to blame for the problems. Having notice alot of people recommended cfg loader I tried that, and its working like a dream. All the games that I cared about testing boot without bothering to even make settings fix 002 error stuff too. And faster too! I believe the suggestion of installing d2x on slot 248 does increase loading speeds. Its crazy.

Thanks for the reply Cyan, I appreciate it. It did help push me into looking over other loaders in my search to figure out what was wrong.

 

[DbGt]

hi, i have this problem....... i cant run mario kart from usbloader gx, everytime i try to run it i get the error 001...... i mod my wii with the latest modmii version, and im using 4.1U.... and latest usbloader gx version, i dont know what could be the problem or how could i bypass this error........... thanks

 

[alexinna]

Cool new features! Thanks! But I think I found a minor bug in GX 2.3, which I could reproduce twice: After applying a new theme, the current screen is decorated with the new theme, GX seems to hang (but no freeze yet). You can click any button, nothing happens and GX freezes. Tried with themes "WiiXplorer" and "Spiffy", both are downloaded via theme downloader.

I have the same issue. As a workaround I manually pointed to a new theme via config file and GX 2.3 loaded new one just fine.
I hope theme switch issue would be fixed at some point.
Other then that I'm happy with GX 2.3. Thanks!

 

[Zetta_x]

Maybe someone can help me here,

I have a USBgecko and want to use GeckodotNET. The first time I loaded USB loader GX with USB gecko plugged into memory card slot B, everything loaded up fine. I turned on wiird debugger, VBI hooktype, and ocarina - booted up GeckodotNet on my computer and everything worked fine. I poked some value and it had frozen... so I go to turn it off.

Everytime i try turning on USBloaderGX with USB gecko in memorycard slot B, it freezes and doesn't load up (maybe it's trying to write a log somewhere and waiting for a response?). If I unplug the USB gecko from the memory card, then plug it in after it is booted up, then try using the same settings (and any other combination of hooktype) I can't get a connection to GeckodotNet.

Any help?

Edit: It seems if I have GeckoDotNet already loaded it won't hang in the beginning. Which goes on to say it seems to be working now