Hacking USB Loader: Which can do GameCube off NTFS?

[Hielkenator]

"get educated"? stop being an ass!

For the third time.... I use NTFS because of FAT32's 4GB file limit

View attachment 2430

see all those scrubbed >4GB files?? I don't want to split them in two

Yes, at what benifit?
You still do not make any sense as for why you want to have that?
especially if you use scrubbed images.

You have a higher compatibilty using a FAT32 partition for Wii softmod useage. DIOSMIOS, Rom loading, apps running from HDD etc.
Why are you posting your game list?
It makes no difference.

If you use an unscrubbed image ( Full iso )EVERY WII GAME SURPASSES 4GB.
Be clear why you want to use NTFS.
Splitting has no downside, using NTFS for Wii purposes has. ( compatibilty, cross OS )
( for full iso backup storage it would make some sense...)

I have a feeling you do not know why you use this yourself either, lol.
Absolute overkill. Less is more.
Rydian is right. You really need to get educated or post valid reasoning for NTFS usage in conjuntion with Wii usb loading.

 

[PolloDiablo]

"Why not?"

Besides my Wii, I use the same external HDD to launch the games with XBMC (with Advance Launcher). Since I have everything organized in order to have each game displaying his cover, screenshot and tittle screen... it's convenient for me to have just only one file per game. Since I'm downloading/renaming hundreds of covers and screenshots, it makes things easier to be able to compare how many files I have in my "games" folder, and how many jpgs I have in the "covers" folder... that way I can know how many files I'm missing. I cannot do that if I have two files per game. Besides, I don't know if Dolphin supports split files.

I don't see why having an NTFS partition represents so much hassle to you. I have one FAT partition for Roms/DiosMios/Uneek/Homebrew, and one NTFS for USB Loading and WODE. Everything works great.

Also, I found NTFS much safer. FAT32 is not very reliable when you're pluging/unpluging your hard drive many times (my case), you can corrupt the whole partition by disconnecting without unmounting it first. I can't count how many times I got FAT drives corrupted that way. When I'm dealing with 1-2TB of worth data, I will go with NTFS.

 

[PsyBlade]

Also, I found NTFS much safer. FAT32 is not very reliable when you're pluging/unpluging your hard drive many times (my case), you can corrupt the whole partition by disconnecting without unmounting it first. I can't count how many times I got FAT drives corrupted that way.

With normal hardware ALL filesystems can corrupt when not properly unmounted.
Only with disabled write caches (both drive and os) this is possible. But then its damn slow.
And even then you still have the risk of corrupting files that were still opened by programs (due to unsubmitted changes or in progress writes).

You should always use proper unmount.

 

[iancer]

lemme just chime the hell in:
everybody relax. get off each others backs.
do you want to know why some ppl prefer 2 partitions?

I don't see why having an NTFS partition represents so much hassle to you. I have one FAT partition for Roms/DiosMios/Uneek/Homebrew, and one NTFS for USB Loading and WODE. Everything works great..

this man has an ELEGANT setup.

because some ppl use multiple OSes
some people dont want to use any GAME manager,
when they have no need to CONVERT any filetypes
when they use an open source OS which supports ANY partition format.

and ppl like me, who just want to DRAG a SINGLE file which equals a SINGLE GAME to another FOLDER using their FILE manager

this is you arguing:

if you use wiiflow you dont have to worry about using 2 partitions AT ALL.
in the end its more convenient more some, its inconvenient for others.
can we all just help OP out?

Hey OP, use wiiflow.

 

[Rydian]

But GC games won't work off NTFS with DIOS MIOS, which is what the OP is using.

Which is why we're telling NahuelDS to pay more attention to situations other than his own.

 

[PolloDiablo]

But GC games won't work off NTFS with DIOS MIOS, which is what the OP is using.
Which is why we're telling NahuelDS to pay more attention to situations other than his own.

Yeah I already knew that (the DM and NTFS incompatibillity)...
Sorry if I went offtopic and didn't help timehacker11 at all, I was just trying to explain why I have an NTFS partition (actually, why some people prefer using it for Wii games), but I kept being told "you don't make any sense", "get educated"

 

[iancer]

its true, your guys are right, but wiiflow will read the GC games from NTFS, when you start one....
YES it will temporarily copy the game to an sd card/fat32 partition ithink...
so the best answer we can give is

'Wiiflow has PARTIAL Dios Mios-NTFS support.'
hey OP, you should use Wiiflow!

 

[Hielkenator]

its true, your guys are right, but wiiflow will read the GC games from NTFS, when you start one....
YES it will temporarily copy the game to an sd card/fat32 partition ithink...
so the best answer we can give is

'Wiiflow has PARTIAL Dios Mios-NTFS support.'
hey OP, you should use Wiiflow!

No, no do not go there.
This is for Dios-Mios lite, wich involves SD card loading ONLY, by copying the game from HDD to SD.
Takes about 5 minutes ( depending on game )
Games aren't loading from HDD AT ALL.

Also if you want to have ALL THINKABLE option right from GUI and a lot more you should really consider USB loader GX. It's the most streamlined USB loader for Wii to date.
Hell it even compares your coverart for you, has full banner support ( first )
EmuNand channel loading, Homebrew, Nandsave emulation, Full DiosMios/Lite and Devolution support, etc etc

No PC needed for confiuration.

 

[Hielkenator]

"Why not?"

Besides my Wii, I use the same external HDD to launch the games with XBMC (with Advance Launcher). Since I have everything organized in order to have each game displaying his cover, screenshot and tittle screen... it's convenient for me to have just only one file per game. Since I'm downloading/renaming hundreds of covers and screenshots, it makes things easier to be able to compare how many files I have in my "games" folder, and how many jpgs I have in the "covers" folder... that way I can know how many files I'm missing. I cannot do that if I have two files per game. Besides, I don't know if Dolphin supports split files.

I don't see why having an NTFS partition represents so much hassle to you. I have one FAT partition for Roms/DiosMios/Uneek/Homebrew, and one NTFS for USB Loading and WODE. Everything works great.

Also, I found NTFS much safer. FAT32 is not very reliable when you're pluging/unpluging your hard drive many times (my case), you can corrupt the whole partition by disconnecting without unmounting it first. I can't count how many times I got FAT drives corrupted that way. When I'm dealing with 1-2TB of worth data, I will go with NTFS.

For your game count, check you folder count in your wbfs folder, it resembles the amount of games if you placed them with a proper manager.
Everything should be nicely organized folders, showing name and Title ID. You never have to look for anything.

If you would use proper managers/ backup loaders you should never have to compare your game/cover count.
You are doing things the hard way but, it seems you like it that way.

As for why you use NTFS for your Wii backup needs, still very shady.
But, seeing you have another use for the partition besides your Wii, it's understandable.

For the unmounting of your drive, again you do not make sense as for how this is NTFS related. Besides you mentioned you are using a dual setup fo you HDD.
Never disconnect any drive when it is is a write cycle.
This count for any format. Data might corrupt, not always noticable at first glance.

At least you now know the facts, you decide how you manage your media in the end.

 

[Rydian]

/me skims the posts.

On the note of disconnecting during a write cycle... whether writing caching/shuffling is in use or not depends on the device, OS, and even settings in the OS of whatever an external is plugged into. Because of this, the activity light on the drive itself should be your indicator for if it's safe to disconnect or not.

 

[smf]

I was just trying to explain why I have an NTFS partition (actually, why some people prefer using it for Wii games), but I kept being told "you don't make any sense", "get educated"

Having an NTFS partition on a Wii only hard drive doesn't make sense. Some people can't afford two drives and need >4gb files for other things, in which case it's justifiable but you have to live with having two partitions. If you want to invent reasons for why you need to have two partitions then again it's your pain.

As long as you are clear that it's not the recommended way of doing it and don't try pursuading people that it's normal, necessary or beneficial then I don't see a problem. There have been some pro NTFS users that have been trying to convince people that it's the only way to play games > 4gb, although fortunately they appear to have given up along with the pro WBFS users.

 

[Hielkenator]

Having an NTFS partition on a Wii only hard drive doesn't make sense. Some people can't afford two drives and need >4gb files for other things, in which case it's justifiable but you have to live with having two partitions. If you want to invent reasons for why you need to have two partitions then again it's your pain.

As long as you are clear that it's not the recommended way of doing it and don't try pursuading people that it's normal, necessary or beneficial then I don't see a problem. There have been some pro NTFS users that have been trying to convince people that it's the only way to play games > 4gb, although fortunately they appear to have given up along with the pro WBFS users.

100% Agreed!

 

[ScreamingBeast]

If that helps anybody, my HDD is in FAT32 and in nearly 2 years I've only faced 2 major problems:

The Last Story and Xenoblade Chronicles.

Wii backup manager splits them in 2 files and for some shady reasons it makes both the games freeze/crash 8 or 10 hours in at a specific point

The workaround for this is to have a USB stick (16GB minimum works best) formatted in NTFS from which to boot the games just to play past the parts where it fuck's up on FAT32

 

[Rydian]

If that helps anybody, my HDD is in FAT32 and in nearly 2 years I've only faced 2 major problems:

The Last Story and Xenoblade Chronicles.

Wii backup manager splits them in 2 files and for some shady reasons it makes both the games freeze/crash 8 or 10 hours in at a specific point

The workaround for this is to have a USB stick (16GB minimum works best) formatted in NTFS from which to boot the games just to play past the parts where it fuck's up on FAT32

From what I've read, that's because the backup manager does a hard split, and if it splits in the middle of an FMV or something that needs to stream, it can cause that. People recommended splitting at a certain point (a bit earlier in the file) to avoid that for Metroid Prime Trilogy and junk, but I don't have enough experience to say what's up.

 

[PsyBlade]

The Last Story and Xenoblade Chronicles ... fuck's up on FAT32

another thing to try is defraging the harddrive in a was that does place the .wbf1 file directly after the .wbfs one
iirc "mydefrag"s custom mode allows such things


using wbfs2fat on a working rip would test the same idea
but is of course impractical for general use

 

[Jayro]

Also FAT can be read from ANY operating sytem, NTFS is windows only.

People tell me Linux has problems with NTFS, but in the 7 years I've been a Linux user, I've never had a single issue using NTFS harddrives under Linux. And they can be read under Mac OS as well, so claiming "NTFS is windows only" Isn't exactly accurate.

 

[Rydian]

NTFS was, but yeah drivers for it were made and distributed years ago.

 

[luke9511]

i have a usb hdd formatted to fat32 and using wii backup manager im able to put 4gb wii games on it without it being split no issues at all

 

[PsyBlade]

i have a usb hdd formatted to fat32 and using wii backup manager im able to put 4gb wii games on it without it being split no issues at all

bullshit

 

[luke9511]

bullshit

not bullshit