Hacking USB WBFS problems

[mvgc3]

I've tried everything I could find on this forum and others to get a WBFS drive working.

I can usually get two or three games on it, and then I get an error and I need to reformat.

I have a WD 500GB drive. I'll admit i haven't really looked into compatible drives, but I can't imagine it not being compatible.

Does anybody have an idea about what's going on? Thanks for any suggestions!

 

[ClockWorK]

Format the drive in windows. FAT32 or NTFS doesn't matter, since you're just going to reformat it as WBFS. I've heard some people say 500gig is the limit on WBFS, so I formated mine to 499gigs.

Mine has 160 games on it and no errors ever.

Also, use a good WBFS Manager program. Some of them are really sketchy. I think most people would recommend WBFS Manager 3 (by AlexDP i think). I used this app (not the Wii) to format the drive as WBFS.

How are you adding games? Through the wii, or through a PC?

Also, provide more info.
Is it an external HDD, or an internal HDD in an enclosure?
Is the drive relatively new? (any chance the drive is bad?)
If you use the PC to add games, what OS and what App are you using?
What error do you get?
Is the drive powered over USB, or with a separate power cord?
Do you have another drive that you could test?

 

[mvgc3]

Thanks for responding. I'll answer your questions to the best of my ability!

How are you adding games? Through the wii, or through a PC?

--- The PC

Is it an external HDD, or an internal HDD in an enclosure?

--- It was originally an external WD brand harddrive. Once it started getting messed up, I figured it might have to do with the enclosure, so I took it out and put it in my new HDD dock (BlacX, from Thermaltake) [all external harddrives are internal drives in an enclosure

]

Is the drive relatively new? (any chance the drive is bad?)

--- The drive is about a year old, I think. There's always a chance its bad, but I was hoping I was doing something wrong (Nothing like this happened until I formatted to WBFS)

If you use the PC to add games, what OS and what App are you using?

--- I'm using XP and like I said just about any app I could find. WBFS Manager 3.0, WBFS Intelligent GUI, and another that I think I deleted. All three seemed to have been reviewed positively

What error do you get?

--- It's been a couple days since I tried, so I don't remember exactly. Something about it not being able to write and making sure its WBFS, I think.

Is the drive powered over USB, or with a separate power cord?

--- The dock uses a separate power cord, and the drive is connected by USB (I lost my eSATA card for my laptop ;_; )

Do you have another drive that you could test?

--- I have a 1TB Hitachi drive, but like I said, I never had any problems with this one until I formatted to WBFS, so if that somehow did mess up my WD drive, I don't want to risk it with my new one.

 

[Xras]

Hi,

Are your games giving errors, or just the adding games to the drive?
If it's the games, it might be a bad dump or a case of overheating (had that myself)
If it's the adding, it might be either the program or the active partition (heard that a few times)

 

[mvgc3]

It's just adding them. My drive doesn't seem to like that. Everything formats fine, or at least seems to.

I use EASUS partition manager to make a NTFS or FAT, then I use WBFS Manager or Intelligent WBFS GUI to format it to WBFS.

When I go to add a game it says "Incorrect or unformatted partition", which it obviously shouldn't be since the program JUST told me it successfully formatted the partition.

I've tried so many combinations of programs games and File Systems that I'm starting to think my drive has succumbed to a very early death...

 

[Xras]

After you´ve formatted the partition to WBFS, you need to disconnect and reconnect the drive for it to be recognised.
If you´re using Vista (or XP i think), just format the whole drive to NTFS, then use the manager to re-format to WBFS. After that, disconnect, reconnect (don't forget to close the WBFS manager), and it'll detect as WBFS.. if not, you might even need to restart.

This should solve initial problems of detecting a WBFS correctly. If you still have problems after that, i'm at a loss :/