Hacking Wii backup Manager for Windows

[fig2k4]

See the option "Ignore storage convention for transfers to WBFS file".

If you enable that, then doing "Transfer->WBFS file.." should save the files using the title and no text file is created either.

 

[GlassVial]

Came across a minor issue here, doing a very large WBFS->WBFS transfer (697GB) from drive 1 to drive 2, and WBM v0.3.4r4 sort of, "lost track of time". It's stuck on ETA: 06:29:35 Total: 16:45:38. The transfers are still going, but the time estimate hung up. Not a huge deal by any means, just thought I'd mention it.

Thanks

Edit: time finally "un-stuck" just took a few hours

2:57:32 and counting down...

 

[drcrappants]

add a rename titles function!

 

[VashTS]

I'm attempting a large transfer and it keeps freezing up on me. Its usb to usb, 500GB WD to 1TB WD. Both drives work fine. Maybe its the iso? Its from WBFS to NTFS. If that helps at all. Is this a known bug?

Edit Seems like its the game, weird. But I skipped that title and its still rolling smoothly.

 

[fig2k4]

@giantpune
I just noticed you post. How the hell did I miss that?

Anyway, I see that the drive sizes are wrong too using the custom folder. I'll need to test under wine again, I must've broke something because everything was working OK for me when I tested it before.

@GlassVial
Maybe the windows message queue's getting held up causing the messages to never get received, or at least delayed. I'll look into that.

@drcrappants
Inline title editing is on the way..

I'm just trying to work though all the different scenarios to make sure there's no bugs. The drives were quite easy, but with the files I had to take into consideration that they're using one of the folder conventions, or they're just individual files etc. I think it's done now..

It'll be possible to write the ID and title permanently to ISO, CISO and also to the Wii disc header in WBFS. Or you can just rename everything using the custom titles without writing any changes to the files. There's 2 new options to control how things are renamed.

@VashTS
If it only happens with the one game, chances are it's corrupt. Obviously the app should handle it better and not just freeze. It'll be tricky trying to reproduce it, but I'll definitely keep it in mind.

 

[VashTS]

Thanks for the reply but I actually believe its my computers USB ports. I used my laptop to transfer the rest, and it went smoothly. I did lose about 11 games in the transfer, which isn't that much, only about 10% of what I transferred.

Edit: Ahhh now the same games that didn't make the transfer and now making it to my internal Hdd as ISO. Maybe I'll write them individually.

 

[djbubba2002]

i just downlaoded the new one , where do i go to see the covers, there is no opipion for it ..

 

[fig2k4]

No covers again yet..


BTW, Dutch and Spanish translations have been added..

 

[VashTS]

Damn this sucks. Keeps locking up when transferred big files (big = 1GB or better). What can I do to trouble shoot this. I've copied about 160GB to my other WD 1TB through windows the other day with no issues at all. Is there some bug in this program that will lock it up if there is more than one USB HD in windows? I doubt it cause I tried it with just my 1TB for wii stuff, then I tried it with both. Still same result. ISO image is perfect, works great from disc.

Edit: I've attempted transfers from both my internal IDE drives and my external both with the same freezing issues.

 

[fig2k4]

Have you enabled write caching for that drive? Maybe disabling the buffered transfers option would help.

Where does the freezing happen? eg. At the end of the transfer. Have you tried leaving it for a few minutes to see if it does complete?

When using buffered transfers on a slow drive or network connection, there's usually a pause at the end while the cache is flushed. It really is the only reason I can think of..

The more detail you give about one specific test, the easier it'll be to spot what the problem is.

 

[whatup777]

fig, in the next release of WBM can you make it not request admin rights because since it does I cant use it.

Thanks!


PS How do you open a .part file?

 

[VashTS]

Have you enabled write caching for that drive? Maybe disabling the buffered transfers option would help.

Where does the freezing happen? eg. At the end of the transfer. Have you tried leaving it for a few minutes to see if it does complete?

When using buffered transfers on a slow drive or network connection, there's usually a pause at the end while the cache is flushed. It really is the only reason I can think of..

The more detail you give about one specific test, the easier it'll be to spot what the problem is.

I didn't enable nor disable anything. Its out of the box and plugged in. Win7 up to date as of dec 2009. My laptop works fine with the program however I just ripped a few games from disc (the discs work perfect) and they still did not work. out of about 10, only 1 worked.

The freezing occurs randomly. It can happen at 10% and sometimes it happens at 95%. Its unpredictable. But my other 1TB WD drive does blink when this one freezes. I almost just about ready to give up on the NTFS format for Wii usb loading. But i hate wbfs. especially now that i have a dedicated 1tb for my wii. I'm going to test a few other things. Like converting to .wbfs and transferring manually. also ripping to iso first with imgburn then messing with the iso.

 

[fig2k4]

After a really quick search, I now realise that I don't need to embed the manifest. If I have a "WiiBackupManager.manifest" file in the folder, it should still request admin privileges. To run the app as a normal user, the file could just be deleted. I'll try it out.

A .part file is probably an incomplete download. eMule and some download managers use that extension so you can tell which files have been partially downloaded.

@VashTS
Have you tried another manager to see if the same thing happens? If it doesn't then obviously I have a problem somewhere. It seems like nothing is working for you with the new drive, but is it the same with the old one?

 

[VashTS]

yes with your program i had the same issues when i was converting from full WBFS to fat32 and wbfs. when i was doing that i encountered the same problems (random freezes). it wouldn't backup the entire drive either. but i think that was addressed, you said it was a known problem and it seemed to be ok this time around.

wbfs manager also froze on me a couple times when i did that massive transfer. but eventually i got it to go and it worked but i did lose a couple isos in the process (wbfs manager writes them as BAD title id, or something like that). is there another ntfs manager? i'm trying to stay with ntfs for backups this time around. i hate having multiple partitions especially a fat32 partition. with usb loader gx they now support ntfs which is awesome (can't rip using wii right now though, causes disk errors hence why i'm trying to use your program).

im trying to scrub a disc manually and add it in to see if its my iso or the program.

What does UG mean under partitions column? I notice each game that doesn't work correctly has a UG next to it, all others say G
Except for Game party 2, that iso does not work on this drive (it did copy ok though). the program and usb loader gx read that it is there but the iso freezes upon boot.

After further research i htink usb loader gx is the issue right now.

 

[bosman]

I don't know if anyone else has had this issue but I thought it might be worth reporting ... using 0.3.4r4 i did a copy of my entire wbfs partition to another drive/wbfs partition ... WBFS -> WBFS ... after testing a few games to check that they copied ok I noticed that Super Smash Bros. Brawl did not copy properly ... every time I tried running the copy I got the following error msg in configUSBloader v51 "Ubfs panic : malloc fst" and my Wii would lock up/crash ... so it looks to me like backup manager seems to have a problem coping this particular game correctly (and in turn maybe others?) which makes me wary of using it !!! ... I reverted back to using WBFS Manager 3.0 (by AlexDP) and all copied games ran ok!

I know its been reported but I had the same issue on last week coping Super Smash Bros. Brawl from drive to drive (both WBFS) using 0.3.4r4
Reverted back to 0.3.0 and it was fine.

Really love the program, keep up the good work.

 

[whatup777]

Thanks for the admin thing Fig!! BTW I think conversion is broken because when I tried it, it didnt work. It said complete but my WD My Book stayed NTFS.
Its not really a problem I'll just do a command line quick format.

EDIT: I found I the proplem nevermind

 

[VashTS]

After doing fresh rips, it seems to be working a lot better now. I think the images somehow got corrupted on the wbfs drive. Most games went with no issues at all. So far 2 out of 2 went with no freezing. It must be backup manager finding fault with the iso file.

I think usb loader gx is having issues with ntfs support right now, its not perfect yet. it seems like each of the new revs from 899 to 907 break and fix things. like 907 cannot write to ntfs correctly. but 900 can. 899 wont see the empty space, and so on. ill hopefully get this sorted tonight. i hate when crap goes sour like this, shoulda stuck with good old wbfs

 

[fig2k4]

@bosman
The next version will fix SSBB etc. As you probably read, keeping only the game partition will work OK in r4 until then. It shouldn't be long. I've just got the game list export to do and then I'll release it.

@whatup777
BTW I think conversion is broken because when I tried it, it didnt work. It said complete but my WD My Book stayed NTFS.
I think you meant formatting didn't work? That'll be one of the functions that needs admin rights. When I get time, I'll need to detect if the app has been run as admin and disable all functions that won't work without it.

@VashTS
What does UG mean under partitions column? I notice each game that doesn't work correctly has a UG next to it, all others say G
UG means that the disc has Update and Game partitions. O means Others, like VC stuff etc. It could be that the games have been ripped using a chip that blocks updates. That causes errors when reading back the update partition from the ISO etc., which loaders and some other managers don't do. Setting the partitions to keep as "game only" might help. That way WBM won't try to read the broken update partition. It's worth a try anyway..

AFAIK, NTFS writing is dodgy, even in Linux. Writing support should really be optional in the loaders just to be safe. Actually, I would prefer to be able to make all the filesytems read only in the loaders. It would stop the annoying popup dialog in Windows almost every time I plug in a FAT32 drive, asking to check the disk.

 

[giantpune]

NTFS writing is optional in GX. you have the option not to press the "install" button while a NTFS drive is mounted.

 

[fig2k4]

I was thinking about when a WBFS file is closed. There's a wbfs_sync() call in the wbfs_close() function, which means that every file is written to when it's closed.

I just realised that call isn't needed at all, since the only time a sync is needed is after a format and adding/removing a disc, I think I'll remove it altogether..

I noticed that GX doesn't have a sync after the format though. I have something like this in my wbfs_open_partition() equivalent function..

if (reset)
wbfs_sync(p);

Edit:
I checked my code. I had already removed the sync when closing a WBFS partition so it is read only unless it's being created or a disc is added or removed.