Hacking USB Loader GX

[bm123456]

I have tested backing up my games with several different wiis and drives with USB loader gx . I have just noticed there was some freezing . I'm already know the wiis are made cheaply and the drives are crap . Just wondering if I'm the only one who has seen this or is it a bug of some sort.

 

[GreyWolf]

Mine freezes too during backups if it's going to the HDD. I use CleanRip to dump to SD and it doesn't do it so I'm guessing it's an issue with the USB access or my enclosure.

 

[wiiba]

Sounds like with all the playing around with the drive one of the other programs is still running or hasn't released it properly.

Maybe try shutting your computer down, disconnect the drive, boot up, once in your OS plug the drive in, then once the drive is recognized run FAT32 GUI Formatter.

I did exactly what you said, but the same message keeps appearing. I tried using CFG loader thinking there might be something wrong with the loader but I think there is something wrong with the formatting of the drive. Both loaders could not find the games. Maybe the format is incorrect, even though they were formatted using windows formatter and WBFS. What approach could I take to force a format with the drive?

 

[Cyan]

wiiba : Could you show your partitions ? take a screenshot in a partition manager program and post it here.
I'm curious to see if there are any hidden partition, or if the partition table is either MBR or GPT, etc.

Hello! is this topic still active? I was wondering if someone might help me with an issue I'm having...

From one day to the other, the Loader suddenly stopped working, when I load it it runs and everything, but all the disc covers are "?" and when i try selecting one the loader freezes (it doesnt even open the menu for game load, it just freezes)

I've tried installing different types of USB loader GX with no luck. Any ideas?

yes, it's still active for support. (development is a lot less active)
the loader should display empty covers if it doesn't find the picture with a filename matching the game's TitleID.

look at your HDD, check if you still have the gameID6 (6 digit ID) in the folder name, for example :
wbfs/New Super Mario bros Wii [SMNP01]/ <-- that GameID in bracket

Verify that the game file is also named using the gameID : SMNP01.wbfs

If it's good, try to delete your gamecache.bin (not sure about the filename) located in usbloader_gx folder. It will reset the gameID in memory and force a re-load of all game list.


About the freeze, it's maybe linked to that same issue. Maybe it tries to launch an unknown gameID.
The loader see a gameID (which is wrong, so there's no cover for that ID) and when launching the game it can't load the game because that ID doesn't exist.

 

[ca032769]

Am I correct in reading that USB Loader GX does not have support for Emulators?

 

[GreyWolf]

Am I correct in reading that USB Loader GX does not have support for Emulators?

No. Only Wiiflow does as far as I know. CFG and GX don't currently have a plugin system.

 

[ca032769]

No. Only Wiiflow does as far as I know. CFG and GX don't currently have a plugin system.

Arrrrgggggg, and I was so happy at getting Wii/GC setup though my 8TB and finishing up my emuNand. Emulators were to be next on my list.

Still a GREAT program!! Guess I'll have to set up both for now...

 

[Clutz450]

Arrrrgggggg, and I was so happy at getting Wii/GC setup though my 8TB and finishing up my emuNand. Emulators were to be next on my list.

Still a GREAT program!! Guess I'll have to set up both for now...

What you could try is installing the emulator or its forwarder into your NAND or Emunand and then launch the emulator itself from USB Loader GX that way. I had tried that once before and it worked back then. The only issue was that for some reason the emulators wouldn't recognize my USB drive if launched that way so I had to put my roms on my SD card.

Like I said, this was a long time ago and I haven't messed with it since so you would just have to give it a try and see if it works for you.

 

[ca032769]

What you could try is installing the emulator or its forwarder into your NAND or Emunand and then launch the emulator itself from USB Loader GX that way. I had tried that once before and it worked back then. The only issue was that for some reason the emulators wouldn't recognize my USB drive if launched that way so I had to put my roms on my SD card.

Like I said, this was a long time ago and I haven't messed with it since so you would just have to give it a try and see if it works for you.

Great idea, I'll give that a try. If I run into the same USB issue I'm also using a PNY 256GB SDXC (can't wait for the 512s the become more affordable) that hold just my loaders, covers & a few games in case the USB is not attached. Worst case that should have plenty of room for those smaller games.

 

[wiiba]

wiiba : Could you show your partitions ? take a screenshot in a partition manager program and post it here.
I'm curious to see if there are any hidden partition, or if the partition table is either MBR or GPT, etc.

yes, it's still active for support. (development is a lot less active)
the loader should display empty covers if it doesn't find the picture with a filename matching the game's TitleID.

look at your HDD, check if you still have the gameID6 (6 digit ID) in the folder name, for example :
wbfs/New Super Mario bros Wii [SMNP01]/ <-- that GameID in bracket

Verify that the game file is also named using the gameID : SMNP01.wbfs

If it's good, try to delete your gamecache.bin (not sure about the filename) located in usbloader_gx folder. It will reset the gameID in memory and force a re-load of all game list.



About the freeze, it's maybe linked to that same issue. Maybe it tries to launch an unknown gameID.
The loader see a gameID (which is wrong, so there's no cover for that ID) and when launching the game it can't load the game because that ID doesn't exist.

sure. Here is a pic. I made a breakthrough with formatting, as for the past few days I've been unable to format any usb drive to FAT 32. I found out I had to remove the write protection. After that the drives formatted perfectly and the USB Loader recognised the drive format. Unfortunately then Wii Backup manager didn't seem to effectively load the games. And then when I reinserted the drive into my pc, the games were corrupted. And now recently Wii B Manager crashes trying to access this formatted drive. Kinda lost because this seems the final hurdle left to get this to work...

EDIT: Update. I've managed to make a stable formatted FAT32 Hdd. Its the partitions as you can see from the picture. Now the problem is that even with the recommeneded file structures with wbfs etc. the games aren't recognised.

 

[thepieddragon]

Alright, so after a few minutes of setting up an emunand specifically for Japanese WiiWare games, I've run into a few issues. I'm not 100% sure this is USBLoaderGX's fault, but it's the visible element here, so I'm going to have to assume that for now. Please correct me if this is a problem with something that is not USBLoaderGX.

For one thing, I'm having a problem with the 3 Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games that were released on WiiWare. For some reason (if Google Translate is correct), it doesn't seem to detect any free space to save a game, and as such, it drops me back to the WiiU menu after telling me this. I use uneek2o to launch it due to issues trying to launch it without it. It could be an issue with uneek2o, but if it's not, is this a known bug with USBLoaderGX? Or is there something I need to do to get the game to detect free space?

Secondly, some games have garbled text. Rainbow Islands: Towering Adventure has garbled text, to be more specific. Now, this is admittedly not a huge issue, as I can't read Japanese anyway. But it would still be nice to see the Japanese text actually represented. I fear it might have something to do with the the system language, and I'm not even sure if it can be fixed with USBLoaderGX specifically, but if it can... Well how would I go about that, exactly?

 

[Cyan]

@wiiba :
You have a 200MB hidden "EFI" partition (used to boot your computer with USB instead of internal HDD). that's probably your issue.
The drive is specifically for the Wii ? you don't need to use it for anything else? (like restoring your computer)
We will reset and reformat the drive entirely.

I don't know if there's a way to specifically tell which partition table you want to use. It would be best to use MBR instead of GPT/EFI.

from the disk manager, right click on the FAT32 and select delete partition. (it will delete everything, but you just formated it so you shouldn't have any files on it)
Do the same with the EFI partition, right click and delete.
From here the drive should be empty with no partition.
Right click the empty area and choose to create a new partition, make it the entire disk size. one single big partition. be sure it's "primary" and not "extended" or "logical".
Assign a letter to that new empty partition, you can close the disk/partition manager.

Launch FAT32 formater and format the partition.
Try again with USBLoaderGX.


@thepieddragon:
I've heard emuNAND sometime has issues with "not enough space" when there are TOO MANY space
that's probably a bug with games not checking the size with the correct variable size.

The solution is to put your EmuNAND partition on SD card (or a smaller USB partition or drive). Temporarily if you really want to use USB, then move it back to USB once the savegame is created. or just use SD card if you don't need a lot of wiiware and your SD is big enough.
The problem is USBLoaderGX will tell you that SD is not supported, but you can still launch the game.
Neek2o supports SD on Wii, only the latest beta/leaked version doesn't support SD, but I don't have a way to check which version users are using so there's currently a warning (not an error) and you can still launch.
If that warning annoys you, just use SD card temporarily to create the savegame, then put EmuNAND back to USB.


For the second issue:
I remember there were a game with garbage text too, but I'm sorry I don't remember how it was fixed. I don't remember if it was a setting in the loader or something from the console.

As this is an EmuNAND, you could try to launch neek2o without autobooting a game (go to USBLoaderGX > settings > features > launch Neek)
once you are on the neek system menu, go to the settings and be sure the console is set to japanese language. (if you made a jp NAND I guess there's no language choice ? it's already set to japanaese?)
go back to neek system menu and press 1 or 2 on the wiimote to open the neek hidden setting menu, search if there's a setting about the language. maybe neek is conflicting the console language setting.
Be sure you set the video mode to NTSC instead of PAL or auto, etc.

 

[Rich Q]

Hello,

I have USB Loader GX rev 1260 and the latest Nintendont update installed. I have one large FAT32 with 32kb chunks set up for everything (1TB MyPassport Ultra). I can rip and play Wii games just fine.

I can rip GameCube games just fine. I can launch GameCube games just fine if I open Nintendont and launch them from there.
If I try to launch a GameCube game from USB Loader GX, it tells me I need to copy the game to my SD card.

I can't find any settings in USB Loader to change the base GC loader to Nintendont.

What am I doing wrong?

 

[wiiba]

@wiiba :
You have a 200MB hidden "EFI" partition (used to boot your computer with USB instead of internal HDD). that's probably your issue.
The drive is specifically for the Wii ? you don't need to use it for anything else? (like restoring your computer)
We will reset and reformat the drive entirely.

I don't know if there's a way to specifically tell which partition table you want to use. It would be best to use MBR instead of GPT/EFI.

from the disk manager, right click on the FAT32 and select delete partition. (it will delete everything, but you just formated it so you shouldn't have any files on it)
Do the same with the EFI partition, right click and delete.
From here the drive should be empty with no partition.
Right click the empty area and choose to create a new partition, make it the entire disk size. one single big partition. be sure it's "primary" and not "extended" or "logical".
Assign a letter to that new empty partition, you can close the disk/partition manager.

Launch FAT32 formater and format the partition.
Try again with USBLoaderGX.


@thepieddragon:
I've heard emuNAND sometime has issues with "not enough space" when there are TOO MANY space
that's probably a bug with games not checking the size with the correct variable size.

The solution is to put your EmuNAND partition on SD card (or a smaller USB partition or drive). Temporarily if you really want to use USB, then move it back to USB once the savegame is created. or just use SD card if you don't need a lot of wiiware and your SD is big enough.
The problem is USBLoaderGX will tell you that SD is not supported, but you can still launch the game.
Neek2o supports SD on Wii, only the latest beta/leaked version doesn't support SD, but I don't have a way to check which version users are using so there's currently a warning (not an error) and you can still launch.
If that warning annoys you, just use SD card temporarily to create the savegame, then put EmuNAND back to USB.


For the second issue:
I remember there were a game with garbage text too, but I'm sorry I don't remember how it was fixed. I don't remember if it was a setting in the loader or something from the console.

As this is an EmuNAND, you could try to launch neek2o without autobooting a game (go to USBLoaderGX > settings > features > launch Neek)
once you are on the neek system menu, go to the settings and be sure the console is set to japanese language. (if you made a jp NAND I guess there's no language choice ? it's already set to japanaese?)
go back to neek system menu and press 1 or 2 on the wiimote to open the neek hidden setting menu, search if there's a setting about the language. maybe neek is conflicting the console language setting.
Be sure you set the video mode to NTSC instead of PAL or auto, etc.

I've wiped the drive clean. But now I don't get the option to reformat it or make a new simple volume. The options are greyed out.

 

[GreyWolf]

I've wiped the drive clean. But now I don't get the option to reformat it or make a new simple volume. The options are greyed out.

View attachment 56118

Right-click on the area to the left where it says "Disk 1" and tell it to initialize the drive.

 

[wiiba]

Right-click on the area to the left where it says "Disk 1" and tell it to initialize the drive.

is exfat the same as FAT32? Because it only gives me NTFS or exFAT as partition options?

 

[wiiba]

is exfat the same as FAT32? Because it only gives me NTFS or exFAT as partition options?

I did it to NTFS and it worked perfectly. But if I want to add GC games, can I do it on the same HDD?

 

[Cyan]

Use FAT32 formater to format the NTFS to FAT32.

If I try to launch a GameCube game from USB Loader GX, it tells me I need to copy the game to my SD card.

You don't have the latest USBLoaderGX version.
You probably installed the r1260 to your SD card, but you are NOT launching that version. You probably are still launching the loader from the installed channel and not from the homebrew channel.

Your installed channel has an old version (r1180) and is not launching the version from SD card.
follow this guide to replace your "r1180" full channel to a Forwarder channel which will load the file from SD instead of a fixed internal version.
https://gbatemp.net/threads/usb-loader-gx.149922/page-1114#post-6478222


if you really are using r1260 (revision number displayed on launch screen), then you probably didn't change the gamecube launch mode. By default it's set to MIOS, you need to change it to Nintendont.

 

[thepieddragon]

@thepieddragon:
I've heard emuNAND sometime has issues with "not enough space" when there are TOO MANY space
that's probably a bug with games not checking the size with the correct variable size.

The solution is to put your EmuNAND partition on SD card (or a smaller USB partition or drive). Temporarily if you really want to use USB, then move it back to USB once the savegame is created. or just use SD card if you don't need a lot of wiiware and your SD is big enough.
The problem is USBLoaderGX will tell you that SD is not supported, but you can still launch the game.
Neek2o supports SD on Wii, only the latest beta/leaked version doesn't support SD, but I don't have a way to check which version users are using so there's currently a warning (not an error) and you can still launch.
If that warning annoys you, just use SD card temporarily to create the savegame, then put EmuNAND back to USB.


For the second issue:
I remember there were a game with garbage text too, but I'm sorry I don't remember how it was fixed. I don't remember if it was a setting in the loader or something from the console.

As this is an EmuNAND, you could try to launch neek2o without autobooting a game (go to USBLoaderGX > settings > features > launch Neek)
once you are on the neek system menu, go to the settings and be sure the console is set to japanese language. (if you made a jp NAND I guess there's no language choice ? it's already set to japanaese?)
go back to neek system menu and press 1 or 2 on the wiimote to open the neek hidden setting menu, search if there's a setting about the language. maybe neek is conflicting the console language setting.
Be sure you set the video mode to NTSC instead of PAL or auto, etc.

Yeah, about that first issue.... Turns out I had Emunand Save Emulation off.... I feel like an idiot. But I'll keep that in mind if I ever run into the problem again.

And as I'm on vWii, there doesn't appear to be a settings from within the vWii system menu, and I've actually made a nand from my vWii's sysnand, so it's American. It's just running Japanese games. And besides that, trying to boot into neek resets my WiiU. Furthermore, as this is an American WiiU, the language setting for Japanese is not available in the WiiU settings, so that's a no go. I guess I was just hoping for a way to install the Japanese language into the nand.

 

[Cyan]

The hidden menu doesn't work all the time on vWii.
be sure to have the font.bin or it will not work at all, then don't try to open the menu right after system menu is loaded, wait one minute before trying to display it.
sometime it's even flickering on the screen, it's very unstable.

Ahh, I remember about the garbage text. It's an option in USBLoaderGX for Wii games (I don't know if there's the same option in neek). It's the "country string patch" option in the game settings.


You don't need neek for most games, just use Full emuNAND option instead.
There's a known issue with the settings and patches not working with the channels. Maybe that would have fix your issue.
You can still try, it might work.

use emuNAND full, enable country string option.
if it does nothing, go to settings>loader settings, look for the channel launch mode, switch from normal<->boot.dol

if it doesn't work, you can try Wiiflow, the settings and patches are working with channels in that loader. (just to see if it fix your issue)