Hacking Wii Hard Drive Corrupted?

[Mulsiphix]

I've been using my new USB HD for a couple of weeks now. In a different thread I've already verified my Wii is modded fine with all of the IOS/cIOS required, sysCheck, etc... Everything checked out. There has been some freezing during some emulated games but nothing the occasional reboot can't solve. Today I was unable to create a save state and when I rebooted my HD couldn't be seen by the Wii. I plugged it into the PC and was greeted with this in Windows Explorer. It looks like the data has been corrupted. Can somebody verify?

Questions

1. Any idea how this happened? I know this can happen to a USB drive in Windows if you don't use "Safely Remove Hardware" to eject the drive. But how could this happen on the Wii?
2. Is there anyway to restore/fix my HD or am I looking at a full reformat?
3. Does this mean my HD isn't Wii friendly and I'll need to buy a new one to avoid this happening in the future?
4. Is there any reason to believe this won't happen again if I buy a drive that is verified to be Wii friendly by other users (assuming that information is correct)?

 

[osirisjem]

Unlikely related to the Wii.
Hard drives die.
Especially USB ones .... if you jostle them while they are spinning .... you can ruin them quite easily.

 

[Foxi4]

I smell WBFS from a mile away - am I correct? The drive mounts fine, so the logic board isn't fried, that's not the source of the squiggles. What got borked was the file system. You could try recovering it by using chkdsk W: /f in CMD (enable Admin Privileges), but results will probably be hit and miss.

As for the drive itself, I suggest salvaging whatever you can from it and going through the usual health-enhancing routine of:

1. Checking if it clicks or not - if it does, you'll have to use a special torque screw driver to adjust tension. This may or may not help - clicking is usually shortly followed by death
2. Performing a deep surface scan of the drive
3. Performing a low-level format
4. If you're able to "obtain" a copy, giving it a nice Spinrite treatment. Some people say it's snake oil, others report improvement in overall drive health

To determine whether it's the HDD's fault and if it's on its way out, use any HDD analyzing utility, for instance HDD Health or HDD Monitor.

 

[Mulsiphix]

Unlikely related to the Wii.
Hard drives die.
Especially USB ones .... if you jostle them while they are spinning .... you can ruin them quite easily.

Prior to loading it with Wii files I ran the Manufacturer supplied diagnostic tool, scanned for bad sectors using that tool and two different Windows based tools, ran chkdisk, and a different manufacturer tool that tests S.M.A.R.T. status. Everything came back healthy and in the green. Not a single corrupted sector and S.M.A.R.T result was good. I find it very hard to believe the drive just died two weeks later after being connected to the Wii . I mean it's possible but I wanted to mention this.

I smell WBFS from a mile away - am I correct?

FAT32 all the way.

 

[osirisjem]

Prior to loading it with Wii files I ran the Manufacturer supplied diagnostic tool, scanned for bad sectors using that tool and two different Windows based tools, ran chkdisk, and a different manufacturer tool that tests S.M.A.R.T. status. Everything came back healthy and in the green. Not a single corrupted sector and S.M.A.R.T result was good. I find it very hard to believe the drive just died two weeks later after being connected to the Wii . I mean it's possible but I wanted to mention this.

Run them again.

Does the Hard drive still work in the Wii ?

 

[Foxi4]

FAT32 all the way.

Good. Follow the routine then - chkdsk W: /f, followed by recovering whatever you can and a low-level HDD format. If S.M.A.R.T says it's fine and there are no bad sectors, it probably is and this was just an unfortunate accident, however a deep scan may reveal some problems you weren't informed about by diagnostic tools.

 

[Mulsiphix]

Does the Hard drive still work in the Wii ?

Nope, acts like it isn't there. Homebrew Channel is empty and any NAND based loader channels I run take me immediately back to the Wii System Menu (boot back into it). The drive goes to sleep sometimes while I'm playing something small (like emulation) where everything it needs is in memory. When I go to make a save state the drive spins back up. I've been playing it on the Wii all day long, several Wii/WiiWare games and some NES/Genesis.

Is it possible that the drive went to sleep and when the Wii woke it up for the Save State that the data was corrupted because the Wii doesn't "Safely Remove Hardware" when the drive goes to sleep. I hear this can happen on Windows if you don't use that feature. That makes sense to me but you guys would know the possibilities of what could have happened far better than I .

 

[Foxi4]

Nope, acts like it isn't there. Homebrew Channel is empty and any NAND based loader channels I run take me immediately back to the Wii System Menu (boot back into it). The drive goes to sleep sometimes while I'm playing something small (like emulation) where everything it needs is in memory. When I go to make a save state the drive spins back up. I've been playing it on the Wii all day long, several Wii/WiiWare games and some NES/Genesis.

Is it possible that the drive went to sleep and when the Wii woke it up for the Save State that the data was corrupted because the Wii doesn't "Safely Remove Hardware" when the drive goes to sleep. I hear this can happen on Windows if you don't use that feature. That makes sense to me but you guys would know the possibilities of what could have happened far better than I .

This is highly unlikely. When playing backups, the Wii only reads from the drive, never writes. Unless you were in the middle of saving a file to the HDD, this is an unlikely scenario.

 

[Mulsiphix]

Good. Follow the routine then - chkdsk W: /f, followed by recovering whatever you can and a low-level HDD format. If S.M.A.R.T says it's fine and there are no bad sectors, it probably is and this was just an unfortunate accident, however a deep scan may reveal some problems you weren't informed about by diagnostic tools.

Unfortunately this is a Hitachi drive. Hitachi was bought out by Western Digital (2.5" drives) and Toshiba (3.5" drives). Neither have the old hitachi disk tools and all I can find on the net is this diagnostic tool put out by Hitachi back when they were in business.

Any 3rd party software that might be able to perform a deep scan? The diagnostic tool scan is all I have access to. I've also run a scan with HD Tune Pro but that is freeware and I'm not sure how reliable that is. I'll start checkdisk right now.

 

[Mulsiphix]

This is highly unlikely. When playing backups, the Wii only reads from the drive, never writes. Unless you were in the middle of saving a file to the HDD, this is an unlikely scenario.

I was attempting to create a Save State for the NES emulator FCE Ultra GX. When I attempted to create it I was told there was an error, followed by another error that it couldn't find the folder. I exited the game, back to the emu, and no games were listed. I rebooted the Wii and the HD was no longer recognized. So there was definitely a disk write in progress when this happened.

 

[stomp_442]

I have some generic usb thumb sticks of the same manufacturer, and they all get corrupted the same as in your image, for no reason what so ever. None of my other thumb sticks get corrupted so I'm going to say that the manufacturer made some crappy thumb sticks. You never did say what brand of usb hdd you were using.

 

[Foxi4]

I was attempting to create a Save State for the NES emulator FCE Ultra GX. When I attempted to create it I was told there was an error, followed by another error that it couldn't find the folder. I exited the game, back to the emu, and no games were listed. I rebooted the Wii and the HD was no longer recognized. So there was definitely a disk write in progress when this happened.

Ah, you have the culprit then. You were just unlucky, it seems.

As for recommended software, try HDDScan, but honestly, HD Tune should be reliable enough and chkdsk should suffice unless it detects loads of bads you were previously unaware of. Even the standard Windows scanner will replace bads with sectors from the recovery pool.

 

[osirisjem]

which drive is it ?
It it a native USB HD or a HD in a USB enclosure ?

 

[Mulsiphix]

I have some generic usb thumb sticks of the same manufacturer, and they all get corrupted the same as in your image, for no reason what so ever. None of my other thumb sticks get corrupted so I'm going to say that the manufacturer made some crappy thumb sticks. You never did say what brand of usb hdd you were using.

Model : Hitachi HDT721010SLA360
Height : 3.5"
Interface : SATA
Rotational Speed : 7200rpm'

Attached a full readout from SiSoftware Sandra if anybody wants more info. Has stuff in there about S.M.A.R.T. status and feature/capabilities.

 

[Mulsiphix]

which drive is it ?
It it a native USB HD or a HD in a USB enclosure ?

Fantom Drives G-Force II 1TB USB 2.0 / eSATA 3.5" External Hard Drive

 

[stomp_442]

I did a recovery of the thumb stick one time and none of my files had the same name once they got recovered. I quit using those thumb sticks. The most I can recommend is that if you do recover the files or not, if the HDD keeps getting corrupted then it's probably a piece of crap.

 

[Mulsiphix]

Ah, you have the culprit then. You were just unlucky, it seems.

Is this an indication that this HD is not Wii friendly? I've seen lists where there are drives that have been proven to work with the Wii but I never really understood what happened if they didn't work, since many reported it worked but not with all applications. Could this be such a side effect or does this fall under "$&*# happens"?

 

[Foxi4]

Is this an indication that this HD is not Wii friendly? I've seen lists where there are drives that have been proven to work with the Wii but I never really understood what happened if they didn't work, since many reported it worked but not with all applications. Could this be such a side effect or does this fall under "$&*# happens"?

Not really. If your HDD had issues with sleep mode, you'd notice that by now while playing normal Wii ISO's since the system "loads in bursts", so to speak. The HDD would just "fall asleep" while you're playing or pausing a game, which, as I understand, has never happened to you. I think you just had bad luck.

 

[osirisjem]

Fantom Drives G-Force II 1TB USB 2.0 / eSATA 3.5" External Hard Drive

That's USB enclosure and you put a desktop drive in it.
That setup seems to fail too often.

Get a USB drive like this ... it's a bit more rugged.
If you get another drive for a Wii ... get one like this .
WD Elements SE 1TB USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive - USB 3.0/2.0,

..

That being said ....

You probably have this problem.
http://gbatemp.net/threads/random-c...nd-fce-ultra-gx-when-using-savestates.371212/

 

[Mulsiphix]

Just performed Checkdisk. It said there were numerous errors Windows could not fix. It made all sorts of changes but my roughly 700GB of information is now being reported as 18.2GB and is just more gibberish (not the same as in the image above). I'd say its completely screwed as far as data recovery goes. That is fine, nothing I can't replace. Just not sure if I want to use this drive anymore.

The sad thing is I was using this drive for two years for data storage without a single problem. Lots of regular read/write operations on a weekly basis. Then I use it for the Wii and this happens. Now I'm afraid to go back to using it for data. I'll go ahead and format it, run tests and diagnostics, and see where I'm at. Thank you all so very much for your help. I sincerely appreciate it. You are awesome!