Hacking USB Loader GX

[Cyan]

Y cable could help if you have error while playing (if the console think you ejected the disc, it means the HDD got disconnected due to not enough power)

PD2: Do I need any file in the SD card? maybe I deleted a file or something...

I didn't change anything for EmuNAND. so it's something on your side.
On SD, you need /sneek/kernel.bin IF you want to use SNEEK (emuNAND path on SD), if you want Uneek then you don't need anything on SD but you need it on USB:/sneek/kernel.bin

The channel launcher you have may need the sd:/sneek/kernel.bin file even if your path is on USB, depending on the channel version. First versions always used SD to boot sneek/uneek.
Bootmii NEED the SD card file, but channels and loaders don't and can load the kernel on the correct device.

what is your exact error message you get on the loader?
Neek NAND path selección failed ?

try deleting nandcfg.bin in your sneek (or emunand) folder.
that file contains the emuNAND path list (to switch neek nand on the fly from the neek hidden menu)
it's also used as default NAND when exiting a channel, so USBLoaderGX is editing this file on each boot to set the current EmuNAND path inside that file to properly "return to" the same emuNAND when exiting the game.

if it fail updating that file, it could be few reasons :
it's corrupted (it should be auto-deleted by the loader), can't write the file (SD write protected?), any issue updating into that file (parsing the current nand path inside the file etc.)
I added a limit to 8 NAND path in that file, if 8 is reached it should reset to 1 automatically.
can you send me your file before deleting it? I'll take a look at what's inside and why it can't edit it.
Thanks

 

[biku]

Looks like the problem was that I checked nandcfg.bin as "read only" in windows (I read somewhere that doing it can prevent corrupting). I unchecked it and everything works fine.

Again, THANK YOU!

Is it true that prevents corrupting? Can it be put on "read only after I've tried and works?

 

[sonictopfan]

I have it formatted as FAT32. what do you use to put the games on the hard drive? I use the wii backup manager, could that be the source of the problem? also I have a crashing problem. on the error screen at the top it says build number 116829. is this for USB Loader GX or the CIOS?

I also use Wii Backup Manager and I recommend it for everyone, since you're having slow reads and random crashes then your problem is more than likely the way the hard drive is formatted, you say you use Fat32 but what about the Cluster size? I'm not sure if it matters much for Wii games "it makes a huge difference with Nintendont and Dios Mios" but to be on the safe side go for Fat32 32K Cluster, you can use Wii Backup Manager to do that with ease as it's better than the formatted that comes default with Windows, I recommend you test with a different hard drive or a pen drive first to see if this will fix the problem before you attempt to format the whole thing, test with a game you know causes a lot of slow downs for you.

Edit: I just noticed you didn't mention wither you're using a Wii or a Wii U, if it's a Wii then try what I mentioned above but for a Wii U WD is known to be slow so to fix this you will need a Y cable or an external power cable for the hard drive.

 

[Badablek]

I also use Wii Backup Manager and I recommend it for everyone

yes, perfect...to fragment your drive like crazy and slow down readings
WBM is a wonderful piece of software, BUT it doesn't use preallocation in order to write file(s). Even on a new HDD, even with one game, WBM will fragment the file !

WBM users should defragment their drive after every write...



WIT is the best, and will remain (because WBM is not updated anymore, sadly). A little command-line and you're ready to go :

wit CP --wbfs --prealloc --progress %1 -E$ --dest "x:\wbfs\$N [$I].$E"

(where x is the drive letter of the games partition)

And some drag n' drop batch I wrote :

@ECHO OFF
ECHO WBFS games partition ?
SET PATH=%~dp0
SET /p letter="Letter: "
IF NOT EXIST %letter%:\wbfs\NUL CALL :error

if [%1]==[] GOTO :eof

:loop
start/w wit CP --wbfs --prealloc --progress %1 -E$ --dest "%letter%:\wbfs\$N [$I].$E"
shift
if not [%1]==[] GOTO loop

GOTO :eof

:error
CLS
ECHO No "wbfs" folder on %letter%:
ECHO I'm gonna make it for you.
MKDIR %letter%:\wbfs
goto :EOF

 

[Cyan]

Is it true that prevents corrupting? Can it be put on "read only after I've tried and works?

I don't think it's really useful to put it on read only.
It's only to prevent programs and users from modifying the content, and by the same time, prevent corrupting it (as in "can't modify", not as a real corruption).
USBGX is writing into that file at EACH game launch, to put the current nand path as default/first used path.

You can put it as write protection if you never edit the NAND path, but it's NOT really needed.
that file is re-generated by the loader if it's corrupted.

Don't put it in read only, it's unnecessary.
Even Wii games have issues with read only (black screen at launch). I don't understand why, but be sure the loader is not using write protected files at all.
I updated libFAT to a version with attribute editor function, but didn't used these functions yet. I wanted to check launched games and remove write protection, but not sure if it will work only on FAT, or if it's an issue on ntfs too.

 

[DoctorWhosThat]

@Cyan: Thank you once again, keep up the good work!

 

[GreyWolf]

@Badablek - WBM doesn't fragment files. It uses the standard Windows read/write calls and writes the entire wbfs as one stream. My Wii drive consistently shows as unfragmented in both Windows defrag and MyDefrag.

 

[Clutz450]

@Cyan It seems like you already have your answer but I just tested mod 2 and it didn't crash like mod 1. I had 2488 missing files and after it was done downloading I was missing 2487. I'm guessing that one file (whatever it was) was causing the issue for some reason. Would you find it helpful if I delete my images folder again and tried redownloading everything again or is that not necessary now?

 

[Badablek]

WBM doesn't fragment files. It uses the standard Windows read/write calls and writes the entire wbfs as one stream

NOT really TRUE.

this was reported three years ago, when WBM was under development, and even the developper admited himself that WBM does NOT use preallocation at all (no preallocation = fragmentation). Too bad imagehack.us is not free anymore, I had some useful screenshots to show the same game, on the same fresh new drive. With WIT : fragmentation : 0, with WBM, it was almost at 40% of fragmentation !

https://gbatemp.net/threads/wii-backup-manager-for-windows.188295/page-130#post-4207047

Individual file fragmentation occurs when a single file has been broken into multiple pieces (called extents on extent-based file systems). While disk file systems attempt to keep individual files contiguous, this is not often possible without significant performance penalties.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_system_fragmentation

OS often tries to write at the maximum speed of a drive...which causes a lot of fragmentation.


edit : I was able to download my screenshots and upload them to GBAtemp. Back in 2012, I was under Windows 7

edit 2 : and just for fun, I formatted a spare 2,5" WD Raptor HDD, put it only one game (Just Dance 2016). See the results (now I'm on Windows 8.1)

 

[Cyan]

@Cyan It seems like you already have your answer but I just tested mod 2 and it didn't crash like mod 1. I had 2488 missing files and after it was done downloading I was missing 2487. I'm guessing that one file (whatever it was) was causing the issue for some reason. Would you find it helpful if I delete my images folder again and tried redownloading everything again or is that not necessary now?

I'm don't know if the missing (or added) cover is the one creating the bug.
If you have time, you could try again to find which cover wasn't downloaded before and is now. (or maybe it has been added to wiitdb website recently, so it's one less missing file)

like you want, either you can try again, or don't. That's fine with me. it shouldn't be the freeze issue (unless everyone has that specific game with incorrect cover? but it's not verifying the downloaded data, it's only saving the stream into a file, it doesn't care if the picture is corrupted or bad)

 

[jink640]

I also use Wii Backup Manager and I recommend it for everyone, since you're having slow reads and random crashes then your problem is more than likely the way the hard drive is formatted, you say you use Fat32 but what about the Cluster size? I'm not sure if it matters much for Wii games "it makes a huge difference with Nintendont and Dios Mios" but to be on the safe side go for Fat32 32K Cluster, you can use Wii Backup Manager to do that with ease as it's better than the formatted that comes default with Windows, I recommend you test with a different hard drive or a pen drive first to see if this will fix the problem before you attempt to format the whole thing, test with a game you know causes a lot of slow downs for you.

Edit: I just noticed you didn't mention wither you're using a Wii or a Wii U, if it's a Wii then try what I mentioned above but for a Wii U WD is known to be slow so to fix this you will need a Y cable or an external power cable for the hard drive.

thanks, I reformatted in WBM and I think the 32K was not set. Would it be bad to put it over 32K? and I am on a Wii.

 

[TecXero]

thanks, I reformatted in WBM and I think the 32K was not set. Would it be bad to put it over 32K? and I am on a Wii.

32K will help reduce fragmentation and will have (very slightly) less overhead. Going above it could technically be slightly better in that regard, but some older homebrew have compatibility issues with anything over that. The only advantage to using a smaller cluster size is saving a very small amount of space (I'm talking in the KB range, probably not even breaking a single MB).

 

[Troopage]

Wait, are people still having issues downloading covers? As I said already, mod 1 and 2 download covers just fine for me.

 

[sonictopfan]

thanks, I reformatted in WBM and I think the 32K was not set. Would it be bad to put it over 32K? and I am on a Wii.

I use 32K Cluster and everything works flawlessly on my end, I have over 300+ Wii games plus a shit load of GC and Wiiware+VC titles installed on the EmuNAND and they all run flawlessly at full speed.

 

[jink640]

I use 32K Cluster and everything works flawlessly on my end, I have over 300+ Wii games plus a shit load of GC and Wiiware+VC titles installed on the EmuNAND and they all run flawlessly at full speed.

Thanks for your help! I am not noticing any stutter on videos anymore.

 

[Cyan]

Fragmentation is not a very big issue for wii games, don't worry too much.
if games really has issue (freeze, crash, etc.) then defrag your drive, but if your concern is only the speed, it won't be noticeable (unless it happens in a video)

keep 32k/cluster, that's better for other homebrew compatibility (dios mios for example)

 

[biku]

I don't think it's really useful to put it on read only.
It's only to prevent programs and users from modifying the content, and by the same time, prevent corrupting it (as in "can't modify", not as a real corruption).
USBGX is writing into that file at EACH game launch, to put the current nand path as default/first used path.

You can put it as write protection if you never edit the NAND path, but it's NOT really needed.
that file is re-generated by the loader if it's corrupted.

Don't put it in read only, it's unnecessary.
Even Wii games have issues with read only (black screen at launch). I don't understand why, but be sure the loader is not using write protected files at all.
I updated libFAT to a version with attribute editor function, but didn't used these functions yet. I wanted to check launched games and remove write protection, but not sure if it will work only on FAT, or if it's an issue on ntfs too.

Understood! Thanks again!

 

[tswntk]

yes, perfect...to fragment your drive like crazy and slow down readings
WBM is a wonderful piece of software, BUT it doesn't use preallocation in order to write file(s). Even on a new HDD, even with one game, WBM will fragment the file !

WBM users should defragment their drive after every write...



WIT is the best, and will remain (because WBM is not updated anymore, sadly). A little command-line and you're ready to go :

maybe WBM really fragments files but IIRC, usbloader allows up to 20 fragments per game and and most of us use WBM anyway.

maybe WIT is good but its hard to use and can be confusing for noobs.

What I always do:
Transfer an iso to the local drive of my PC using WBM,
verify the sha1 of the wbfs files after transfer and make a .par set for backup/repair purpose and then
copy the .wbfs to my Wii drive.

I have more than 150 Wii games and close to a thousand other files on the Wii drive, deleted and added files quite a number of times via Windows and overall fragmentation level is less than 1%. Never have any problem.

 

[Clutz450]

keep 32k/cluster, that's better for other homebrew compatibility (dios mios for example)

FYI, like Cyan said 32k clusters is best but if for some reason you can't use 32k cluster size (for example you are using a drive that is bigger than 2TB) you can format to 64k cluster size and USB Loader GX, Nintendont, emuNAND and neek2o will still work. That's what I have on my setup and haven't run into any issues yet. I don't use any other homebrew though so I don't know what else may or may not work with 64k clusters.

 

[Badablek]

maybe WIT is good but its hard to use and can be confusing for noobs.

@tswntk anyone using hacked consoles should not be afraid by a command-line tool
WIT is NOT hard to use, and it's even easier when someone give you a little batch to drag n' drop Wii ISO on it (mine is working beautifully) ! And anti-command-line users can download GUI for it. In this case, you'll need latest WIT builds, because preallocation is ON by default (all WIT GUI I have tried do NOT allow to activate it, and old builds do not use it by default).


WBM should have use preallocation since the beginning, too bad the developer disappeared just after I have reported the issue
and even if loaders can use fragmented files, I had a lot of issues especially with in-game videos (like the opening FMV of Metroid Other M) because of WBM


ps : of course your drive is not fragmented, because you write the game twice ! The fragmented one is on your computer, then when copying it to your external drive, everything is "back to normal" (which also proves that WBM does NOT use the standard read/write of the OS). But do you think that writing a game twice to correct a bad behavior (not using preallocation to write on a HDD) is better/easier than using a single command-line to write it in one shot ? Yes, WBM is great, nicely done with a wonderful interface...but finally, what is it used for ? Basically, writing Wii games, without any "fancy stuff".

Don't misunderstand on what I'm saying, I'm not trying to convince anyone to use anything, but facts prove that WBM is not able to write anything without dozen of fragmented blocks, and this is a problem (for me at least ).