Hardware WBFS HDD: Not initialized

[anastazius]

Sorry for the nercobump also, I'm having the same issue. I've been wanting to dust off the Wii U and its collection of ace Wii games off my harddrive, I know this drive is formatted in WBFS, back in the day I used to use WBFS Manager, and I'm almost certain although windows couldn't read the drive, it know it was connected and it had a drive letter that showed up in My Computer, which I could then browse within WBFS Manager.

Now nothing shows up, and in Disk Management it looks like this:

If I select that option, will it format the drive or will my data on it be OK? Many thanks.

 

[godreborn]

most likely the drive will then be unusable by the wii/vwii. you don't want to initialize it. however, in this instance, I really don't know what to do. you may have to use the wii backup manager.

 

[Alexander1970]

Sorry for the nercobump also, I'm having the same issue. I've been wanting to dust off the Wii U and its collection of ace Wii games off my harddrive, I know this drive is formatted in WBFS, back in the day I used to use WBFS Manager, and I'm almost certain although windows couldn't read the drive, it know it was connected and it had a drive letter that showed up in My Computer, which I could then browse within WBFS Manager.

Now nothing shows up, and in Disk Management it looks like this:

If I select that option, will it format the drive or will my data on it be OK? Many thanks.

Hello.

I would highly recommend to NOTHING to do with it in Windows !

- NO Initialise
- NO Format
- simply do nothing with it please.

Use your WiiBackup Manager for the Game Transfers and all will be good.

Thank you.

 

[jeannotte]

Hello,

@
anastazius :

I suggest you convert your external hard drive to fat32 with "" wbfs2fat "" (without losing the data) and then Windows will recognize your drive (then use wii backup manager) ==>https://gbatemp.net/threads/wbfs2fat-py.291320/

 

[anastazius]

Thanks I will try wbfs2fat. I thought that I already looked into that yesterday but thought that it was Linux-only, looking again it seems that the is a Windows version too so I will give it a go in the next few days. [edit] Acutally, I must have mixed it up with something else.

Cheers for the replies and help everyone.

 

[anastazius]

I tried wbfs2fat and it still can't see the hard drive in the list. The only place it shows up at all is in windows disk management. So I still need to get windows to initialise the disk and I assume assign a drive letter, yeah? I used to be good at the 10 years ago now I feel like a boomer trying to use a VR...

First to be sure I'm gonna test the hard drive in my Wii U to see if there's still games on it, I'd rather not lose all my data.

 

[anastazius]

Guys. I've been a massive noob. I've totally misremembered how I was using my external hard drives; the one that I was convinced was wbfs formatted with Wii games on it, is actually just my normal external drive for my Wii U.

I'm so sorry

 

[foxm2k]

Also had the some issue that I realized it was actually not WBFS but instead EXT3 format. Maybe you have the same.

 

[bbq_bob]

I had this same problem with a disk for vWii on Wii U. It showed up as Uninitialized in the Windows Disk Management software. I recalled that I was already using FAT and not WBFS. It took me a while to remember that I used Ustealth to hide the HDD so the Wii would not ask to format it. A consequence of UStealth is that is hidden and uninitialized to Windows too.

 

[CMDreamer]

Windows doesn't assign a drive letter to an unknown partition format, because to do so, it need to mount it first, which can't do when it doesn't recognizes the file format.

That happens with Linux partitions, even if Windows recognizes the drive with ( EXT/2,3,4/Swap ) partitions, it doesn't assign a letter to them because the format is not recognized.

WBFS partition format is not only outdated, but it limits the drives possibilities, you can't use it to nothing more but WBFS games and -maybe- savegames.

 

[godreborn]

I think ustealth alters the first sector, so that it's not picked up by windows or the wii u.

 

[operat0r]

So .. I have TWO drives (cloned ) ... and this method has worked at least 4 times for me .. it's insane ...

* drive will not show up in Windows or WiiU and 'clicks' *

1) unplug the WiiU from the back ( like the Wii maybe it has stupid thing on the powerbrick that it never really turns off even if you plug it into the wall!!!)
2) Swap front USB or back USB just to be sure
3) hold the drive perfectly vertical long ways and smack it on a hard surface ... then swap the sides and smack it again... basically you're trying to get the head to 'move' or unstick without crashing it into the disk ... again I been in IT for 25 years.. and this has worked at least 4 times on the same drive ... drive is from 2015

<3 RMcCurdy.COM

 

[nghtcrwlr666]

I know this is an old thread, just trying to help. I had the same issue, so I installed disk drill to backup my games, and then "magically" windows assigned letter and I can access the hdd.

 

[sasaborg]

Hi, I would appreciate if anyone can help, I have a similar problem. I have used WD HDD to transfer wbfs via WiiBackupManager. I do not remember excatly about the formating on the HDD, but everything worked nicely, until I tried today to see some old photos that were on HDD. My Win10 does not recognize disk, it stays as UnknownDevice in Device Manager. I have tried wbfs2fat and Test Disk, but the disk is not recognized again.

Now I realized that it happened after the installation of CTGP Revolution. My son has been playing only that since then. It turns out that the Wii does not see the HDD as well, and CTGP is running from Wii's internal memory.

So, I am not sure if this is Wii's problem at all, or maybe the HDD is just dead :/