Hacking Wii backup Manager for Windows

[fig2k4]

With Wii Scrubber, you'd create a diff file from your original ISO. This diff contains all the junk data that will be removed by scrubbing. It's needed to restore the ISO to it's original state because there's no way to regenerate the junk data.

The diff file can't really be compressed since the junk data is totally random data. So you end up with 2 files that, combined, are the same size as the original ISO.

You can then convert your scrubbed ISO to WBFS etc. To restore it, convert back to ISO and unscrub it with Wii Scrubber using the diff file.

I think it's a waste of time doing all this when you're just as well keeping the original ISO as a backup, rather than a large file containing useless data. If your scrubbed file gets corrupt at some point, you'll end up with 2 unusable files. Where if you have the original ISO it's no big deal, just copy it to WBFS and it's up and running again in a few minutes.

The answer to your question is no because the junk data can't be generated without a prior backup of it and that backup wouldn't compress any better than the original ISO.

 

[themanuel]

With Wii Scrubber, you'd create a diff file from your original ISO. This diff contains all the junk data that will be removed by scrubbing. It's needed to restore the ISO to it's original state because there's no way to regenerate the junk data.

The diff file can't really be compressed since the junk data is totally random data. So you end up with 2 files that, combined, are the same size as the original ISO.

You can then convert your scrubbed ISO to WBFS etc. To restore it, convert back to ISO and unscrub it with Wii Scrubber using the diff file.

I think it's a waste of time doing all this when you're just as well keeping the original ISO as a backup, rather than a large file containing useless data. If your scrubbed file gets corrupt at some point, you'll end up with 2 unusable files. Where if you have the original ISO it's no big deal, just copy it to WBFS and it's up and running again in a few minutes.

The answer to your question is no because the junk data can't be generated without a prior backup of it and that backup wouldn't compress any better than the original ISO.

I see. Thanks for explaining that. You're absolutely right. There is no point in storing the garbage data.
Now, is there an advantage to using cISO over wbfs for permanent storage of images, in terms of integrity of the data?
I'm thinking I could keep the cISO's in my PC as base of operations, and continue to use wbfs on the Wii's hard drive, but if there is no inherent benefit, I could just store everything as wbfs and avoid the conversions altogether.

 

[fig2k4]

cISO was only really used in uLoader and I implemented support for it before WBFS files existed. I would just store everything as WBFS since it's an up to date, usable format. That's just my choice though.

There's also the obvious benefits of one time conversion. Once you have a game converted to a WBFS file, you can copy it around using Windows Explorer if you like.

 

[themanuel]

cISO was only really used in uLoader and I implemented support for it before WBFS files existed. I would just store everything as WBFS since it's an up to date, usable format. That's just my choice though.

Got it. I'll ditch the cISO option, as I don't really have a use for it.

There's also the obvious benefits of one time conversion. Once you have a game converted to a WBFS file, you can copy it around using Windows Explorer if you like.

Well, that's not as much fun as using WBM

One more if you would: can WBM strip the garbage data from an original ISO and end up with a smaller scrubbed ISO?
All the ISO's I've produced with WBM in the past take up as much as space as an original.

 

[fig2k4]

The size of a scrubbed ISO is always the same as the original unless it's trimmed, but that would require the partition data to be "shuffled" as it's named in Wii Scrubber. Wii scrubber can actually shuffle and trim the data to do what you want, but it is definitely slower than newer apps.

What WBM and other managers now do is use sparse files. This allows the files to use only non-zero data. ie. the scrubbed parts aren't written to disk and don't actually use any space. To see what I mean, transfer a smaller game to an ISO, then right click on the ISO in explorer and look at the "size on disk". You'll notice that the ISO is actually only using the same space or less than a WBFS file for that game. The only drawback with that is when you copy the ISO in explorer, it then uses the full size again. The games can actually be played in this format on an NTFS drive. I think most up to date loaders would handle them OK.

 

[themanuel]

The size of a scrubbed ISO is always the same as the original unless it's trimmed, but that would require the partition data to be "shuffled" as it's named in Wii Scrubber. Wii scrubber can actually shuffle and trim the data to do what you want, but it is definitely slower than newer apps.

What WBM and other managers now do is use sparse files. This allows the files to use only non-zero data. ie. the scrubbed parts aren't written to disk and don't actually use any space. To see what I mean, transfer a smaller game to an ISO, then right click on the ISO in explorer and look at the "size on disk". You'll notice that the ISO is actually only using the same space or less than a WBFS file for that game. The only drawback with that is when you copy the ISO in explorer, it then uses the full size again. The games can actually be played in this format on an NTFS drive. I think most up to date loaders would handle them OK.

That answers many questions I always had about this. I never realized that the ISO generated by WBM actually does take less space than the original ISO. I always got my file size from the "size" column in Windows Explorer and never thought to look at the file properties to check the size on disk. With this understanding, it is now clear to me that I will just want to save the files as the scrubbed ISO that comes out of WBM, since size is my main concern.

Thank you, very much, for taking the time to answer all of my questions.

 

[Wiimm]

Some base info about scrubbing: http://wit.wiimm.de/info/scrubbing.html#intro

 

[themanuel]

Thanks, Wiimm.

 

[s_unray]

@fig2k4

Concerning the ncwbfsstyle template. I've discovered an error using the html output of this template and using it in an iframe, It shows the pictures in IE and Safari but not in Firefox.
The problem lies in that the path to the pictures uses backslashes in stead of forward slashes (see picture). Can you change this in your next version.

Thanks Simon.

 

[fig2k4]

Sure, I'll fix that.

Windows can actually use forwards slashes in path names anyway. I started using that recently for my cross platform stuff so I don't need to worry about converting between the two formats, I just use forward slashes internally.

 

[Wiimm]

Sure, I'l fix that.

Windows can actually use forwards slashes in path names anyway.

The feature is there since DOS! Only the command line interpreters interpret a slash for options.

Long story:
DOS was a copy a of CPM and CPM a minimal/simple remake of unix. Unix, PHP and VMS use the slash as separator for directories. Anyone, I call him Mr G., decided, that DOS don't need a directory. Because of this, the have used the slash to use options without separator like FILENAME.EXT/OPTION. Then with DOS 3.3 (?) directories appeared in DOS. And now they had a problem, that all the old batch files must work. The internal functions like open() and fopen() only expects the pure path without options and so they support slash and backslash.

 

[fig2k4]

I just really started using C++ at the start of the year. Before that, I always used backslashes. Using double backslashes in C++ is a pain, so when I discovered that Windows could use forward slashes it made my life a lot easier.

 

[Montblanc]

I don't know if it's already been reported or not, but I can't convert Just Dance 3 from iso to wbfs. I tested it on the latest three revisions. Wiithon converts it flawlessly. I'm running WBM on wine, because I can't live without it, so it might be the problem, but I can convert other isos with it.

 

[fig2k4]

No problems with Just Dance 3 here. I tested it with a few different setups; removing partitions etc. I would have to say it might be a wine related problem.

Can you try it again and email me the log? ([email protected])

There shouldn't be any problems with individual games, so it must be something that affects all games with the same characteristics. For example, Just Dance 3 is almost 4 GB. That's the only thing that stands out just now. Once I see the log I should know a bit more.

You could also try setting the split size to 1 or 2 GB to see if the same error occurs.

 

[justmike]

Thanks for this, I used to use WBFS Manager, but that couldn't transfer .wbfs files, so I found this. Keep up the great work!!

 

[JoostinOnline]

I found 2 bugs:
1) If you are using WBM to extract and transfer files, the ETA doesn't reset once the extraction is done, but rather stays at 00:00
2) WBM doesn't check if you are missing any RAR files during the extraction, so you will end up with a corrupt file.

 

[fig2k4]

1. The whole progress is off when transferring straight from archives. I've been meaning to fix this but I need to create a bunch of rar files to test it.

2. I'm sure I added a check for missing files, but I'll make sure it's working. If there's any errors when extracting the rar, it should try to transfer anything. Obviously something wrong there too.

 

[theremin]

I have a full hdd with all of the files on it, and I'm trying to use wii backup manager to copy all of them over to an identical drive. (they are both the Seagate Expansion 2TB.

I've tried EVERYTHING (when I started this today, I thought I could just do it with windows), and the closest I've gotten is with wii backup manager. It transfers about 10-20 of them, and then it just dies and stops working.

I see tons of tutorials for softmodding or ripping, but I can find anything about a straight copy to figure out what I'm doing wrong.

Thanks

 

[PsyBlade]

check the filesystems of both disks

btw if you use .wbfs files on fat or ntfs you can simply use windows to do the copying
for wbfs partitions you have to use a manager like WBM
and .iso is better copied with WBM too (or another tool that can create sparse files)

 

[FIX94]

Nice to see it as sticky now!