Hardware Wii U refuses to format USB drive.

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KingpinSlim

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I bought a Y-cable for my 2.5" drive in an Inateck FEU3NS-1-enclosure.
The HDD is a 500gb drive out of the original PS4.
The Wii u says "The device could not be formatted."

Is there any other way to get it to work?
 
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KingpinSlim

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I used this drive on my PC before i decided to use it on my Wii U.
I tried it with every kind of format i had access to. Fat32, NTFS, exFat and unallocated.
The drive is recognized by the Wii U, but will not format. Even with the Y-cable.

Is there a way to format it for Wii U manually on PC?
 

Shikkichu

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Not that I know of, and it may sound weird but can you try a different enclosure or just a simple y-cable that plugs directly to the hdd?
My Wii-U is picky with enclosures for some reason, I use a Rosewill RX35 for a 3.5"
My 2.5" I literally just use some cheapy thing from Newegg This one it's cheap plastic, feels weird, but working for me for about 3 years now, moving from wii, laptop, pc, etc.

Also the drive enclosure is a single usb powered? That may be why, a y-cable for the enclosure itself won't do much, however I'm not an electrician but it makes sense, it can't force more power through a single USB port.
All the y-cables I see are actually designed to work that way, i.e. attached to the data bus reader and power supply. But as I said I'm not entirely sure, but this MAY be the issue.
 
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KingpinSlim

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I really, really hate the Wii U.
I really do.

My drive didn't work, so i bought a Y-cable because that's what Nintendo recommended and now it STILL doesn't work.
Now i'm supposed to buy another enclosure?
Fuck this.
 

sarkwalvein

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KingpinSlim

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I honestly have no idea what to do now.
I need an enclosure that works with the Wii U and one that is also sold on fucking amazon germany. -,-
 
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KingpinSlim

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I ordered a WD Elements drive 1TB.
I wanted the 1 TB one for Wii and GC while this 500gb one was supposed to be for Wii U Games, since there aren't all that many good ones anyway.
 

sarkwalvein

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KingpinSlim

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Okay, i bought the enclosure. I hope this works. Thanks!
I needed to wait two days for a Y-cable, which ended up not working.
Now i wait two more days for a new drive enclosure.

The Wii U is a piece of absolute garbage.
 

duffmmann

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Welcome to the Wii U displeased customer club.
Anyway, AFAIK Nintendo recommended to only use powered HDDs, and from a specific very short list in their website.
But Y cables with unpowered cases usually work.
The Wii U is a PITA. It killed many of my USB Drives, it is slow to use, slow to load, slow to die unfortunately.

Sounds like you've had a lot of bad luck with the Wii U and hard drives. I suppose its a bit slow to transfer files (something I only ever had to do once and I did it overnight while I was sleeping), but beyond that I've had no issues with any of the hard drives I used, and I didn't have to consult Nintendo's "approved list" of hard drive haha.
 
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godreborn

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I've had no issues with my wii u external drive. knock on wood. I'm using about three cables too. the one to my external drive is about a foot long, so I have an extension cable plugged into that. well, actually, I have a toggle switch plugged into the short cable on one side with the extension cable plugged into the other. then, I have the y cable plugged into the long extension cable. my wii u drive is on the opposite side of my entertainment center which is y I have so many cables plugged into one another. I've never encountered an issue formatting it. I've never had any problems with slow down, resetting, or anything of that nature with the drive. it's a wd 2TB elements drive. and, obviously, it's unpowered. I hope u fix ur issue. maybe try a different enclosure?
 
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KingpinSlim

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@sarkwalvein was absolutely right. I ordered the housing he advised and it works perfectly now.
I used the USB Y-cable i had ordered earlier and the HDD from before.
I have no issues with this setup and i can finally cram it full of games!
Thank you sarkwalvein!
 
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MisterPantsEyes

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I have a WD Elements 1TB someplace around home.
If you want to know if it works on the Wii U for Wii games I can check sometime later.
As for the cheap disk I am using now, well I think that guy from ebay also sells the encolsure alone.
What kind of USB port does this enclosure have? I only have a USB micro-b y cable.
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