vWii 3TB+ Hard Drive Support Fundraiser

[XFlak]

vWii 3TB+ Hard Drive Support Fundraiser!​

Hi everyone! Some of you may have already heard, but @blackb0x has set a ko-fi donations goal to grab the right gear he would need to add 3TB+ portable HDD support to USBLoader GX & cIOS!

For years I've been asked if I could add support for larger hard drives, but that requires me to buy one or two of them (preferably two different brands). And these portable drives aren't cheap. So if you'd like me to look into and hopefully resolve this decade-old issue, here's how you can help.

Blackb0x hasn't posted much about this so I thought if I were to create a dedicated thread for it, and occasionally bump it, we might be able to make it happen!

Currently, drives that only use 4Kn won't work no matter how you configure them. With our support, blackb0x can hopefully build a brighter future, not just for GX but other loaders too! As is the case with many features that get added to GX, the developers supporting other loaders will often incorporate his changes, so there are benefits to supporting his goal even if GX isn't your preferred loader.

Blackb0x is actively working on his next USBLoader GX update, and he's hoping to look into this at the same time (now) that he's looking into file system changes (exfat support coming soon!). The current FAT library doesn't use the 64-bit LBA scheme by default and the loader doesn't use 64-bit addressing for storage. So he'd be implementing all of that, while also addressing any issues at the cIOS level too.

While people can use large hard drives right now, they're limited to specific makes\models (WD | Seagate), and require a bunch of special steps. Not to mention that some WD drives are already unsupported by WD's own software. So, it's reasonable to expect compatibility to decline over time as support for older hardware becomes less of a priority.

This effort should not only drastically increase the number of compatible large hard drive options, but also make things easier to set-up, more reliable and future-proof!

So if you're reading this, and you're in a position to help, please visit blackb0x's ko-fi page to make a donation! And if you're not able to donate, I get it, I'm in a similar boat. I plan to share a portion of my ModMii donations to help him hit this goal, otherwise I wouldn't be able to afford it either. But there are other ways to help besides donating directly, you can help spread the word!

Thanks everyone!

Edit: I've also posted this in the Wii Forum here

 

[SDIO]

Currently, drives that only use 4Kn won't work no matter how you configure them.

Here you say 4Kn doesn't work

While people can use large hard drives right now, they're limited to specific makes\models (WD | Seagate), and require a bunch of special steps.

But turning these drives into 4Kn is apparently a solution?

Am I missing something?

 

[XFlak]

I'm not 100% on the finer details, I was paraphrasing this post here when I said that

B

Hacking  Post in thread 'USB Loader GX'

Oct 19, 2025

Looks like th 5tb model in those posts. I have used 5tb model in past, ill check the model, the biggest issue is they suck at everything because they use smr. The one i linked is cmr. Also never used the wd formatter, whatever the modmii downloads does the job just fine.

In that thread, yeah. But over the years there's been others mentioned throughout the forum.

Drives that only use 4Kn won't work no matter how you configure them. And there are also reports of drives failing to work when going beyond 2TB, although most people fail to mention whether their drive uses 512e or 4Kn...

• blackb0x

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• 
• 

This may also be relevant information

Some WD drives can be formatted via the WD Quick Formatter application, which then allows them to work via 512-byte emulation. But in recent years there's been reports that it doesn't work correctly with newer drive revisions.

 

[XFlak]

Bump

Black Friday sales fast approaching! I'm not sure if the goal will be met in time, but even if we get to 50% by then it would be amazing!

 

[ca032769]

Bump

Black Friday sales fast approaching! I'm not sure if the goal will be met in time, but even if we get to 50% by then it would be amazing!

Also posted in the other thread.

Hope he gets enough, would like to see this happen. Sent him something to help make it a reality.

 

[ChibiMofo]

He deserves it for all that he has already done for the community...

 

[XFlak]

Hey everyone, just wanted to report that not only was blackb0x's goal met, it was exceeded! Thanks everyone, especially @ca032769 !