How to install big WiiU games using a FAT32 USB Drive.
FIRST OF ALL!: Please, if this tutorial has been written before, I request the thread to be deleted, thanks!
Also, I'm not responsible if your Wii U explodes with this, or something bad happens, this tutorial has been tested with CoD:Ghosts with its respective DLC and both were perfectly installed and working, I wouldn't be writing this if that weren't be the case... This guide also assumes that you know how to do the Brazilian method to install games and know how WUP Installer works, etc.
Hi to all! Well, I was lurking for some time in the forums, and I found the Brazilian method a long time ago to install the games here, it was great! But the problem was the need to use a SD Card to install them, the biggest SD Card I have is 16GB (14.6GB) so there are some games that would be imposible to install (Examples are Xenoblade Chronicles X or Call Of Duty Ghosts). And as you know CoD:Ghost doesn't has an eShop release, so AFAIK I can't use Wii U USB Helper Tranfer Tool (Not to mention the slower transfer rates using it)
Taking this in mind, let's start!:
Well, I will tell you my setup.
Another thing, use only MBR partition table, GPT will NOT work (I tried with a GPT disk and I lost over 3 hours of my life trying to make it work).
Apps that will be used:
WUP Installer GX2
Homebrew Launcher (I use version 1.4, I know it is outdated, but it does the job)
Mocha CFW with FAT32 support
You will need to format your HDD to FAT32, try to use a drive that is below 2TB, the Wii U might have problems with something bigger.
Also I'm not sure if doing a partition to a 2TB drive in order to reduce the volume space will work, it's not been tested but it COULD work.
Once you have your FAT32 HDD ready, you will need to download a modified version of Mocha CFW which enables FAT32 compatibility with Wii U, it is a bit unstable so it has been removed for now from the normal release in GitHub, but it will work fine for our needs.
You can download it here .
Extract that in USB:\wiiu\apps, do the same for the SD Card.
Also make sure to COPY ALL YOUR SD CARD DIRECTORIES TO THE HDD, the devices need to be IDENTICAL.
Here's my setup:
USB:\haxchi (Haxchi files)
USB:\install (Here you will put your encrypted game)
USB:\wiiu\apps (Here we will have all HBL apps)
USB:\wiiu\games (Used by loadiine when I was copying the directories from my SD Card, you don't need it)
USB:\wiiu\saves (Used by loadiine when I was copying the directories from my SD Card, you don't need it)
USB:\fw.img (CFW image, you don't need it for this tutorial)
If you have the HDD directories the same as your SD Card and you also have the modified Mocha in apps folder for both devices (including WUP Installer GX2 and Homebrew Launcher too), then the only last thing we need to do here is to put your encrypted game in install folder to use in Wup Installer! (Put the encrypted files in USB:\install).
Connect your FAT32 HDD to the Wii U, don't connect your Wii U formatted HDD yet.
Turn on your Wii U, of course ignore the pop up asking to format the disk, then open Haxchi and launch Mocha, run the CFW. After this you will see that the Wii U will not ask to format the disk, instead it will recognize it like a formatted drive. Your hard drive will start acting now as it were your SD Card, that's why I writed before about making the HDD folders to be exactly the same as the SD Card, is not really necessary, it should be enough just by having WUP Installer GX2, Homebrew Launcher and Mocha on the HDD in the wiiu\apps directory,and your game on install folder with haxchi files in USB:\haxchi, but this way will ensure to work exactly the same.
Open Haxchi again and launch WUP Installer GX2, select the "Install" folder, and when you get asked the directory to install select "NAND". I don't know if it will work using the USB option, but I don't think so, maybe it gets installed on your FAT32 drive, maybe it just crash... anyway, that part does not involve me. (And no, I also don't think it will work if you connect your Wii U formatted hard drive before launching WUP Installer GX2 in HBL, the console only Works using a HDD at the time, 2 HDDs will request you to go Data Managment and we don't want that.)
After finishing, you will see your game is perfectly installed into your NAND! CoD:Ghost for example is 16GB and it fitted well in my console. It would be impossible to do this with my SD Card, since it's real capacity is 14.6GB.
Now, turn off your Wii U, disconnect your FAT32 drive, and connect your main Wii U hard drive, boot the console up, go to data management and transfer the game to the HDD, and also transfer back the data you previously moved.
Aaaaaaaaaaaand... well, that's it.
Also the credits goes to everyone who developed on the Wii U! I didn't developed anything here except the tutorial, I found this method while I was messing around with my console.
I will be updating this according to the questions the users makes.
Feedback is really appreciated!
, Hope this is useful.
Also, I'm not responsible if your Wii U explodes with this, or something bad happens, this tutorial has been tested with CoD:Ghosts with its respective DLC and both were perfectly installed and working, I wouldn't be writing this if that weren't be the case... This guide also assumes that you know how to do the Brazilian method to install games and know how WUP Installer works, etc.
Hi to all! Well, I was lurking for some time in the forums, and I found the Brazilian method a long time ago to install the games here, it was great! But the problem was the need to use a SD Card to install them, the biggest SD Card I have is 16GB (14.6GB) so there are some games that would be imposible to install (Examples are Xenoblade Chronicles X or Call Of Duty Ghosts). And as you know CoD:Ghost doesn't has an eShop release, so AFAIK I can't use Wii U USB Helper Tranfer Tool (Not to mention the slower transfer rates using it)
Taking this in mind, let's start!:
Requirements
Well, I will tell you my setup.
- 500GB WD My Passport 0730 (FAT32 format, single partition of 465GB approximately, here we will store the game to install and the same files as the SD Card, I will explain this in detail later)
- 160GB Samsung HDD "HM161GI" (This will be the disk that is in Wii U format, is my main disk for the console)
- 16GB Kingston SDCard, you will need Homebrew Launcher Access and all the setup for apps done, in my case I used Haxchi.
- 32GB Wii U, this is necessary since the game before being transferred to the formatted HDD needs to be installed into NAND, a 8GB Wii U would not make sense for this trick.
- Keeping the last requirement in mind, you should try to have almost your internal memory empty, try to move things to your main formatted Wii U hard disk temporarily, Wii U games maximum size is 23.3GB according to WUDs, I don't think there is a Wii U game that exceeds that size.
Another thing, use only MBR partition table, GPT will NOT work (I tried with a GPT disk and I lost over 3 hours of my life trying to make it work).
Apps that will be used:
WUP Installer GX2
Homebrew Launcher (I use version 1.4, I know it is outdated, but it does the job)
Mocha CFW with FAT32 support
Preparing FAT32 HDD
You will need to format your HDD to FAT32, try to use a drive that is below 2TB, the Wii U might have problems with something bigger.
Also I'm not sure if doing a partition to a 2TB drive in order to reduce the volume space will work, it's not been tested but it COULD work.
Once you have your FAT32 HDD ready, you will need to download a modified version of Mocha CFW which enables FAT32 compatibility with Wii U, it is a bit unstable so it has been removed for now from the normal release in GitHub, but it will work fine for our needs.
You can download it here .
Extract that in USB:\wiiu\apps, do the same for the SD Card.
Also make sure to COPY ALL YOUR SD CARD DIRECTORIES TO THE HDD, the devices need to be IDENTICAL.
Here's my setup:
USB:\haxchi (Haxchi files)
USB:\install (Here you will put your encrypted game)
USB:\wiiu\apps (Here we will have all HBL apps)
USB:\wiiu\games (Used by loadiine when I was copying the directories from my SD Card, you don't need it)
USB:\wiiu\saves (Used by loadiine when I was copying the directories from my SD Card, you don't need it)
USB:\fw.img (CFW image, you don't need it for this tutorial)
If you have the HDD directories the same as your SD Card and you also have the modified Mocha in apps folder for both devices (including WUP Installer GX2 and Homebrew Launcher too), then the only last thing we need to do here is to put your encrypted game in install folder to use in Wup Installer! (Put the encrypted files in USB:\install).
Doing the magic!
Connect your FAT32 HDD to the Wii U, don't connect your Wii U formatted HDD yet.
Turn on your Wii U, of course ignore the pop up asking to format the disk, then open Haxchi and launch Mocha, run the CFW. After this you will see that the Wii U will not ask to format the disk, instead it will recognize it like a formatted drive. Your hard drive will start acting now as it were your SD Card, that's why I writed before about making the HDD folders to be exactly the same as the SD Card, is not really necessary, it should be enough just by having WUP Installer GX2, Homebrew Launcher and Mocha on the HDD in the wiiu\apps directory,and your game on install folder with haxchi files in USB:\haxchi, but this way will ensure to work exactly the same.
Open Haxchi again and launch WUP Installer GX2, select the "Install" folder, and when you get asked the directory to install select "NAND". I don't know if it will work using the USB option, but I don't think so, maybe it gets installed on your FAT32 drive, maybe it just crash... anyway, that part does not involve me. (And no, I also don't think it will work if you connect your Wii U formatted hard drive before launching WUP Installer GX2 in HBL, the console only Works using a HDD at the time, 2 HDDs will request you to go Data Managment and we don't want that.)
After finishing, you will see your game is perfectly installed into your NAND! CoD:Ghost for example is 16GB and it fitted well in my console. It would be impossible to do this with my SD Card, since it's real capacity is 14.6GB.
Now, turn off your Wii U, disconnect your FAT32 drive, and connect your main Wii U hard drive, boot the console up, go to data management and transfer the game to the HDD, and also transfer back the data you previously moved.
Aaaaaaaaaaaand... well, that's it.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Q:Why does your english sucks so bad?
- A:Because I don't really know how to speak it very well, yes. I studied english at school but well... I will be updating the tutorial if nobody understand how to do this, it is also my first one.
- Q:The tutorial looks... empty, you didn't post any video, not even a single image, what's this?
- A:That is because I'm a Little short of time and also I don't know if this tutorial has been posted before, maybe someone else has done this before me and I will be wasting time if I need to upload videos and images, because in that case this tutorial will be deleted.
- Q:Let's say it's the first tutorial and nobody has made this before, will you update it with images and a video?
- A:Yes, of course, I may post a video too!, the tutorial will be updated from time to time.
- Q:Why I need a 32GB Wii U?
- A:Because that way you can install a big game there, I managed to get about 25GB of free space on my console moving everything to my hard drive, WUDs are 23.3GB so that means the space in the internal memory is enough for holding at least one big game. I don't really think there is a game that is bigger than 23.3GB, that would take 2 Wii U Discs to fit... or a dual-layer one with aproximattely 46.6GB of space
- Q: OK, but I can't just move the game from my FAT32 HDD to a Wii U formatted one?
- A:No, the console will ask to go data management if you connect 2 drives, I don't think it will work if you connect the second one while you are in HBL.
- Q: Is it really necessary to make the USB structure the same as the SD Card?
- A: Well... not really, I said that to prevent problems, but Mocha will mount your FAT32 USB as a FAT32 SD Card, which means that as long you have WUP Installer GX2 and Homebrew Launcher on your USB it should work fine
Also the credits goes to everyone who developed on the Wii U! I didn't developed anything here except the tutorial, I found this method while I was messing around with my console.
I will be updating this according to the questions the users makes.
Feedback is really appreciated!
, Hope this is useful.
