Wii hard drive needs reformatting

[jack_28]

So I'm trying to add more games to my Wii flow since I haven't updated it since around Skylanders Giants came out, but when I plug it into my PC it can't read it and says it needs reformatting, I don't have any of the files backed up on my PC is it possible to back the hardrive up on the Wii or recover the files without formatting?

 

[SnomxIsKindaOK]

If I'm right (I'm usually not) you can maybe use a file manager on the Wii and then back up to a USB or something
Btw Does the hard drive still work on the Wii?

 

[master801]

Depends how you originally formatted the drive - Either in FAT32, NTFS or WBFS (proprietary format).

Since Windows can't mount it, I'm assuming WBFS (also assuming the hard drive isn't dead or malfunctioning).

Plug in your hard drive and when Windows prompts to format, press cancel. Do not press format otherwise you lose all data. The hard drive should be mounted to a drive letter but inaccessible.

Download Wii Backup Manager (from here - the official website is dead), extract and run the program, go to "Drive 1" or "Drive 2" (either or, it doesn't matter in this case), then select the "Inactive" drop-down box and select the drive letter your hard drive is mounted to.

The games should pop up in the listing. You can then select all games and use the "Transfer" drop-down box to export them in ISO or WBFS format.

 

[jack_28]

Depends how you originally formatted the drive - Either in FAT32, NTFS or WBFS (proprietary format).

Since Windows can't mount it, I'm assuming WBFS (also assuming the hard drive isn't dead or malfunctioning).

Plug in your hard drive and when Windows prompts to format, press cancel. Do not press format otherwise you lose all data. The hard drive should be mounted to a drive letter but inaccessible.

Download Wii Backup Manager (from here - the official website is dead), extract and run the program, go to "Drive 1" or "Drive 2" (either or, it doesn't matter in this case), then select the "Inactive" drop-down box and select the drive letter your hard drive is mounted to.

The games should pop up in the listing. You can then select all games and use the "Transfer" drop-down box to export them in ISO or WBFS

Ok i have started the process now after I transfer all the games should I format the hard drive?

 

[r1vver]

MBR, Single Partition FAT32, Cluster Size (Allocation Unit Size) 32768 (32k).

 

[master801]

Ok i have started the process now after I transfer all the games should I format the hard drive?

If you want the hard drive to be accessible in Windows, yes.

NTFS is best in my opinion, but you can use FAT32 (a format option in Wii Backup Manager exists for this) if you'd like. However, game ISOs will be split every 4GB due to how FAT32 works.

FAT32 is required if you plan on playing GameCube games; but if you prefer NTFS for Wii games, you can work around this by making 2 separate partitions instead of one consolidated FAT32 partition. The first partition being FAT32 for GameCube games, and the second parition as NTFS for Wii games.