Hacking USB Loader GX

[Clutz450]

As long as your custom paths point to your emunand you should be fine. Which is why I recommend dumping your nand with USB Loader GX because it will automatically put it in the correct spot.

 

[goodeddie]

As long as your custom paths point to your emunand you should be fine. Which is why I recommend dumping your nand with USB Loader GX because it will automatically put it in the correct spot.

Yeah I'm using the USB Loader GX nand dump. I just read something interesting.

Under USB Loader GX "Settings" there's "Hard Drive Settings". I read that there's a "Games/Install partition" setting. Do I have to change this to FAT32 or something to make it know where to load the WiiWare games from?

 

[goodeddie]

What WW/VC game would be a good test for emunand? And should I put the .wbfs formatted Wii games into my NTFS formatted drive instead of using the WBFS formatted drive? Is NTFS drive more stable? And do you suggest using neek vs emunand for loading WiiWare/VC? Can you tell USB Loader GX to use neek for WiiWare/VC and emunand for Wii games?

 

[Clutz450]

Try NES Super Mario Bros. That should work.

FAT32 with 32k clusters is the best option to use. WBFS formated drives is obsolete and have been known to corrupt drives. NTFS.... I don't actually remember the cons to using that format but I do know everyone suggest FAT32 and it's what I use and haven't had any issues.

Your .wbfs formated games should be placed in a folder called wbfs in the root of your drive. The best way to transfer them would be to use Wii Backup Manager. Just google that to find a link to the website.

As far as emunand stuff goes I don't know enough to explain how it all works. Just that neek2o is required in order to run most N64 games and a handful of WiiWare games. So unless you need to play any of those games you should be fine without it.

As it stands right now, does your Wii play Wii games from USB Loader GX fine or are you having issues with that too?

 

[goodeddie]

Try NES Super Mario Bros. That should work.

FAT32 with 32k clusters is the best option to use. WBFS formated drives is obsolete and have been known to corrupt drives. NTFS.... I don't actually remember the cons to using that format but I do know everyone suggest FAT32 and it's what I use and haven't had any issues.

Your .wbfs formated games should be placed in a folder called wbfs in the root of your drive. The best way to transfer them would be to use Wii Backup Manager. Just google that to find a link to the website.

As far as emunand stuff goes I don't know enough to explain how it all works. Just that neek2o is required in order to run most N64 games and a handful of WiiWare games. So unless you need to play any of those games you should be fine without it.

As it stands right now, does your Wii play Wii games from USB Loader GX fine or are you having issues with that too?

I know this is the USB Loader GX thread but do you know what ULoader uses? Does it use Neek or does it use its own emulated nand?

My Wii games are fine on the WBFS formatted partition but making it into NTFS or FAT32 allows me to save other stuff on the hard drive.

 

[Clutz450]

I don't know. If there is a ULoader thread try posting in there. I would try and see if you can get your Wii games working on a FAT32 formated drive and see if that works. Once you get that working we can try and get emunand working.

 

[GreyWolf]

I know this is the USB Loader GX thread but do you know what ULoader uses? Does it use Neek or does it use its own emulated nand?

My Wii games are fine on the WBFS formatted partition but making it into NTFS or FAT32 allows me to save other stuff on the hard drive.

ULoader was originally WBFS only but was updated to support FAT32 later. 5.1E should work with with either.

 

[elshiftos]

FAT32 and Wiibackupmanager works great for me. It does mean splitting the larger Wii ISOs, but I'm able to run most emulator ROMS and GC ISOs from the same partition without any issues whatsoever.

USB Loader GX is the best IMHO

 

[goodeddie]

FAT32 and Wiibackupmanager works great for me. It does mean splitting the larger Wii ISOs, but I'm able to run most emulator ROMS and GC ISOs from the same partition without any issues whatsoever.

USB Loader GX is the best IMHO

You were able to run WiiWare and ISOs off of FAT32? I want to run WBFS formatted ISO because they don't have the trash fill in data.

 

[GreyWolf]

You were able to run WiiWare and ISOs off of FAT32? I want to run WBFS formatted ISO because they don't have the trash fill in data.

WBFS files are the same data that goes on a WBFS partition mapped to a file. A WBFS file is essentially a virtual partition with one game on it.

 

[VashTS]

first off - thanks cyan! booting in neek mode is entering flawlessly!

the return to usb loader gx, not so much..is there something i'm missing? when i exit out of a wiiware title from neek mode it goes to the system menu for neek instead of back to sysNAND and auotboot GX.

is there any way to make neek go back to sysNAND by chance?

 

[Cyan]

You can't return to USBLoaderGX when you are in neek mode.
What you can do is return to a channel installed on neek.

it's common use to install a "NK2O" channel, which contains nswitch homebrew.
nswitch reboots the console to exit neek mode (that's the only way to exit neek : reboot)

So it works like this :
Neek EmuNAND + NK2O channel
run a game with "return to" ON (you don't select which channel to return to, it only can return to a channel with "NK2O" titleID)
play the game, then exit the game > it reloads NK2O > it reboots the console > back to real NAND > Priiloader > auto run installed dol > forwarder dol > back to USBLoaderGX on real NAND.

You can choose any "nk2o" channel from here to install to your emuNAND :
https://code.google.com/archive/p/custom-di/downloads

 

[VashTS]

You can't return to USBLoaderGX when you are in neek mode.
What you can do is return to a channel installed on neek.

it's common use to install a "NK2O" channel, which contains nswitch homebrew.
nswitch reboots the console to exit neek mode (that's the only way to exit neek : reboot)

So it works like this :
Neek EmuNAND + NK2O channel
run a game with "return to" ON (you don't select which channel to return to, it only can return to a channel with "NK2O" titleID)
play the game, then exit the game > it reloads NK2O > it reboots the console > back to real NAND > Priiloader > auto run installed dol > forwarder dol > back to USBLoaderGX on real NAND.

Thanks! thats what i was thinking, but i had it on sysnand lol. so the Return To feature calls it, good to know!

 

[Cyan]

just a note for WiiU users : on vWii you don't need that channel, "return to" option is calling the "return to WiiU" channel instead, it's also the only way to exit neek mode on vWii : reboot the console.

 

[elshiftos]

You were able to run WiiWare and ISOs off of FAT32? I want to run WBFS formatted ISO because they don't have the trash fill in data.

I have Wii and GC disk images plus a ton of emulator ROMs running happily from a FAT32 drive.

Your question intrigued me. I've just had a look at the WBFS folder on the USB drive and Wiibackupmanager creates the disc images in .wbfs format, some of which are smaller than DVD size, so I presume some form of data scrubbing is going on. Disk images larger that the FAT32 file size limit are split over 2 files.

I have VC and Wiiware games running from emunand on the SD card. Never had the need to try to run them from USB.

 

[goodeddie]

I have my Wii ISOs on my FAT32 now too.

How do I use the forwarder? I see I can download a .dol file but don't I need a Wad file instead? I want a channel that points me to the USB Loader GX.

Nevermind it is a Wad and it points to only specific file paths.

 

[GreyWolf]

I have my Wii ISOs on my FAT32 now too.

How do I use the forwarder? I see I can download a .dol file but don't I need a Wad file instead? I want a channel that points me to the USB Loader GX.

Nevermind it is a Wad and it points to only specific file paths.

Yes. It looks in "/apps/usbloader_gx" then "/apps/usbloadergx". (SD first, then USB)

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I have Wii and GC disk images plus a ton of emulator ROMs running happily from a FAT32 drive.

Your question intrigued me. I've just had a look at the WBFS folder on the USB drive and Wiibackupmanager creates the disc images in .wbfs format, some of which are smaller than DVD size, so I presume some form of data scrubbing is going on. Disk images larger that the FAT32 file size limit are split over 2 files.

I have VC and Wiiware games running from emunand on the SD card. Never had the need to try to run them from USB.

A WBFS file is the same data as on a WBFS partition. They're basically a partition with only one disc in them but saved as a file.

It is the "system" portion of the disc and just the game's data partition minus the unused stuff in between them.

 

[VashTS]

one more comment/question...for some reason USB Loader GX doesn't create banner cache, I had to go through WiiFlow, create the banner cache and then it works fine. I'm not sure what's the cause but if anything let me know what to test and how to test to see where the problem is.

 

[goodeddie]

Darn. I couldn't get the USB Loader GX forwarder working that I downloaded off of page 1. My folder name is apps/usbloader_gx

It requires IOS58 installed. Wiis 4.3 come with IOS58.

 

[GreyWolf]

Darn. I couldn't get the USB Loader GX forwarder working that I downloaded off of page 1. My folder name is apps/usbloader_gx

It requires IOS58 installed. Wiis 4.3 come with IOS58.

You need the UNEO 5.1 forwarder. (Wii link) What does it do when you launch it from the system menu?