Hacking USB No longer recognized by USB Loader GX

[goeteeks]

I've seen a few topics on this but none of them have been helpful for me. Basically I updated to USB Loader GX 3.0 and it read my USB just fine. My Wii has all the necessary cIOS and such installed to it. I was able to run games from the disc, install them, and everything was working perfectly. But an issue happened when I was downloading some themes that ended up crashing my Wii and wiping my USB.

I had to reformat the USB drive. And ever since then the Loader would get stuck on "Initialize USB device". I can get it to load if I disconnect the USB drive, but it doesn't seem to recognize the USB if I plug it in again. The drive itself works fine on my PC and I can even get HBC to run the USB. I have deleted all of the config files for USB Loader GX and re-installed/tried all 3 IOS versions. I even tried an older (2.49) version of USB Loader. It always gets stuck on "Initialize USB Device".

I've tried both ports on my Wii. I've reformatted (Always as FAT32) my USB a few times. HBC can read the USB, so I don't think it's a hardware issue. I've ran soft-mod checks and everything seems fine there as well. I'm pretty much at a loss as to what the problem is...

 

[goeteeks]

As an update. I tried formatting the USB to a WBFS drive. With the USB plugged in, it no longer freezes on "Initialize USB device". However, when it gets to the loader, it says that the USB device can not be found and loads channels. I'm REALLY at a loss for this...

 

[tmv_josue]

The USB initialization is done by the cIOS unless It's using mload.
Upgrade your d2x cIOS'es to the latest final version and use a version of loader that uses this cIOS:
http://code.google.c.../downloads/list

 

[goeteeks]

I've got all my cIOS's and d2x up to date. I think the problem is just the USB...

 

[tmv_josue]

I'm not sure but maybe is the Partition table.
Format your HDD again and make sure the Partition table is MBR.

 

[goeteeks]

Well I managed to somehow destroy my USB trying to partition it. So I just ordered a new one. We'll see if that fixes the problem.

 

[AudibleAdvent]

I don't think you can actually destroy a USB by partitioning it. Try formatting it and try again.

 

[goeteeks]

I can't. I've tried several different methods of formatting it, it always fails. I didn't think I could destroy it that way, either.

 

[PsyBlade]

There is absolutely NO way to break a drive via partitioning it (or doing any other reading/writing)
other then exhausting the physical write count (6 figures at least).

use dd to zero the first part and whatever mess you made is gone
do not do this if you are to stupid to figure out which drive is which
zeroing the wrong drive is hilarious for us but not so much for you

windows:
install dd as usual (manually searching, downloading via google)
get drive number eg from diskmanegement
run "dd if=/dev/zero of=\\.\PHYSICALDRIVEX count=1 bs=4k"
where X is the drive number

linux/unix:
install dd as usual (automatic via packagemanager, but probably already installed)
get device name eg by inserting it after boot and running dmesg
run "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX count=1 bs=4k"
where /dev/sdX is the device name

 

[Cyan]

I didn't know that command.
It's used to clear the partition MAGIC? the first 4k?

 

[PsyBlade]

yes it clears the mbr (which is the first 512B)

anything else that overwrites the start of the drive would work too

the 4k were chosen more or less arbitrarily to clear most of a potential bootloader too
otherwise it will not work anymore but might still be detected by something like bootmenus

on a HDD I usually overwrite 100MB to destroy potential filesystems too (to avoid bogus detection)
but that wold be really bad news if used on the wrong drive
if only the mbr is gone there is at least a chance for recovery
plus I don't like avoidable writes to flash media

 

[goeteeks]

Does dd stand for something or should I just google dd?

 

[PsyBlade]

"dd" is the actual name of the program
it stands for "convert and copy", but "cc" was already taken by the C compiler
google "dd windows"

 

[goeteeks]

hahahaha, I actually just had to format it through "Disk Management" as opposed to right clicking it in "My Computer". Thanks for the tip there, and thanks for all the help guys!