Hacking Wii USB Hard drive wont appear on PC but works on Wii

[AapplemadeanAccount]

Ive recently decided to add more games to my homebrewed Wii. I test the 500gb WBFS USB drive with a Y cable and the Wii loads games from it. But when I plug it into my Windows 11 Pc (Tried on Windows 10 too) and Windows wont assign it a drive letter. As it wont be given a drive letter, tools like WiiBaFu or Backup manager wont read the drive. Ive tried repairing the drive with Wit, but it cannot find the drive. If I look at the eject media panel, the USB drive appears but cant be read. Heres the Log when I try to find the WBFS drive with Wit:

F:\Windows\System32>wwt list --long
!! wwt: ERROR #48 [NO WBFS FOUND] in AnalyzePartitions() @ src/wbfs-interface.c#447
!! no WBFS partitions found -> abort

Ive tried different ports, different cables that work with other drives, and nothing. Yet the same cable that doesnt work on any of my computers lets my Wii read the drive through USB Loader GX or WiiFlow.
Ive also tried converting the drive to FAT32, but cannot until my Windows PC Assigns it a drive letter.
Any ideas? Any help is appreciated.

 

[jeannotte]

Hello,

If your USB key is in WBFS format, Windows will never read your USB key, the wbfs format is specific to the Wii.

did you try with this utility to convert WBFS to FAT32, with this (wbfs2fat) ==>https://gbatemp.net/threads/wbfs2fat-py.291320/

 

[AapplemadeanAccount]

Yes, but windows wont assign a drive letter or read it so i cannot. The only thing that can read it is TestDisk, which at least allows me to copy games from it.

 

[r1vver]

if there is no letter then there are no partitions on disk ("partitionless" wbfs)
it looks like something from here:
https://gbatemp.net/threads/wbfs-hdd-not-initialized.432751/

btw, just in case: was this disc ever used with the Wii U?
Maybe in struggle with the "Format Disk" nag window on it MBR was screwed up somehow?

 

[CoolMe]

Why are you using wbfs format it's unnecessary since you have an hdd. You need to format it as FAT32 for it to appear on your pc. Also you can't play GC games with a wbfs formatted drive.
Though WiiBackupManager can read wbfs formatted drives and should show your Wii games etc.

 

[leseratte]

You need to format it as FAT32 for it to appear on your pc.

This is not true. Even a WBFS-formatted drive should appear on a computer, be assigned a drive letter, and be accessible with any tool like WWT, Wii Backup Manager, WiiBaFu, etc.

Also, WBFS is not unnecessary. On a Wii it's probably even more reliable than FAT32/NTFS.

I'd assume the drive is either been formatted partitionless (as mentioned by r1vver), or you have set up UStealth to hide the drive from the WiiU and from Windows.