One HDD for Wii U / Wii game installations?

[bentendo]

Hi,

I have a Wii U that I'm trying to install my games onto that are for both Wii and Wii U. I have encountered something I didn't think was the case, where by injecting my Wii games onto the Wii U menu the system has told me I have too many icons and despite games being installed, it cannot show them.

So, is there a way yet where I can install games onto vWii from the same HDD as the Wii U's formatting? Given that a HDD needs both USB ports on the back to function properly, I'm hoping there is a solution for this at long last so that I can begin to add my Wii games to the vWii from the same drive as my Wii U installations.

*crosses fingers*

 

[Blythe93]

So, is there a way yet where I can install games onto vWii from the same HDD as the Wii U's formatting?

As far as I know, nope. Only way you can use the same HDD for both Wii and Wii U games is if you install Wii games as VC injects. Otherwise, you'll have to go with two HDD setup, one for Wii and the other for Wii U games.

 

[Ettino]

Do you really need 300 (294 ?, there're default icons already) games on the thing? I used to have 2 hdd set up, 1 for wii u and 1 for vwii & gc. Then I did a clean house becasue I'm not a hoarder.

But yeah go with 2 hdd and swap them out if you want to work around the 300 limits.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Hi,

I have a Wii U that I'm trying to install my games onto that are for both Wii and Wii U. I have encountered something I didn't think was the case, where by injecting my Wii games onto the Wii U menu the system has told me I have too many icons and despite games being installed, it cannot show them.

So, is there a way yet where I can install games onto vWii from the same HDD as the Wii U's formatting? Given that a HDD needs both USB ports on the back to function properly, I'm hoping there is a solution for this at long last so that I can begin to add my Wii games to the vWii from the same drive as my Wii U installations.

*crosses fingers*

There is a way you can have more titles installed. IIRC it involves having multiple profiles, and using a homebrew to arrange the icons so that the list that's shown is different on each profile.

 

[KannaCrossing]

Would creating partitions work? That way wii u formats one part of it.
I'm very new to the wii u hack scene, so no idea if it is tried.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Would creating partitions work? That way wii u formats one part of it.
I'm very new to the wii u hack scene, so no idea if it is tried.

No. The Wii U won't even recognize the drive if you manually resize the partition, it needs to have a single Wii U formatted partition using the entire drive or it will just ask you to format it. Formatting will always format the whole drive.

 

[jeffyTheHomebrewer]

Closest thing you could get to that is to put two HDDs in a case, then connect both of their data cables to a two port hub inside the case, with them being powered seperately from the Wii U.
But even then I'm not sure if the Wii U and vWii play nicely with hubs....

 

[KannaCrossing]

No. The Wii U won't even recognize the drive if you manually resize the partition, it needs to have a single Wii U formatted partition using the entire drive or it will just ask you to format it. Formatting will always format the whole drive.

Closest thing you could get to that is to put two HDDs in a case, then connect both of their data cables to a two port hub inside the case, with them being powered seperately from the Wii U.
But even then I'm not sure if the Wii U and vWii play nicely with hubs....

Damn..

 

[jeffyTheHomebrewer]

Damn..

Also! If you use Aroma for your CFW, there should be an option to hide the "format this USB drive now?" nag in the Wii U menu. Still, the system won't recognize the drive unless it's one single partition on the whole disk.

 

[CoupureElectrique]

Not the answer you’re looking for but USB Loader GX for vWii is the best way to play Wii games with its graphic enhancing options (framedebuffer on and deflicker off) All you need is a large SD. I have a 256GB micro SD (with adapter) and it works great.

 

[tmnr1992]

Given that a HDD needs both USB ports on the back to function properly

It doesn't, you can connect one end of the y cable to a wall plug or your TV or somethig else, so you would only use one port of the console. I've also read that some SSDs require less power and can work without a y cable. I'd try a second HDD for tje wii games.

 

[Sypherone]

As already mentioned. If wish to use a drive in in vWii mode and also in WiiU mode, you need to seperate drives.

WiiU uses its own format with NO partition. it's encrypted and you can't read/write/change the content of the drive.

vWii (Wii mode on wiiU) can use external HDD with partition. You can partition ALL in FAT32.
WBFS is not needed since ... 2010!
don't use WBFS format, it's outdated and corrupt games. FAT32 and NTFS are working fine with Wii games and USBLoaders.

You can't use the same hard drive for both WiiU and vWii.

In vWii mode from SD-Card : Gamecube games by Nintendont and Wii games by USB Loader GX v1280+ / WiiFlow can also be played from SDCard. But the SD front slot is not designed for this permanent read access, so not recommended.

One drive for all games : If wish to use one drive for all, the only workaround is still injecting all games in WiiU mode wich is limited to 300 games. This gives you also the possibility to play all GC games with the WiiU`s game pad and also some Wii games. For this Tecmoons injector has a option for compatible Wii games to patch a game with classic controller function, to be able to use the WiiU` gamepad controls.

Unfinished project, one drive for both: There exist a project for using one drive for vWii and WiiU, but not finished because it seems to be complicated to set it up as normal user. The main concept was creating two partitions. First the second in the back of the drive for vWii USB Loaders, modifying the partition table in the back. And then the first partition in the front for WiiU mode. And includes modifying the partition table in the front and in the back of the drive. As the WiiU goes to format the hole drive.
But i cant find the source atm, iirc it was on Sourceforge.
https://sourceforge.net/p/usbloadergx/issues/2295/

 

[Blythe93]

There are two more options with 2 HDD setups:
1) 2x SSDs, one for vWii side (Wii and Gamecube games), the other one for Wii U side (Wii U games). Why SSDs? Because in that case you don't need Y cable. If the console is placed horizontally, vWii SSD goes into top USB port, Wii U SSD goes into the bottom one. There are few more things you need to do to make it work properly:

1, If using USB Loader GX, you'll need to set Loader and Game IOS to 249. (Not sure about WiiFlow, it should be the same.)
2. Make sure to hide vWii SSD with UStealth in order to avoid Wii U format HDD nag. (I believe that Aroma has a certain plugin that does that, but I'm not sure as I haven't tested it that much.)

Info sourced from here, posted by Cyan.

2) Two HDDs in a two drive enclosure. It's a bit harder to set everything up properly, so I'll link to the source thread here, thanks to cyberstudio for making it possible and Akiranon for testing everything out.


1) one much easier to set up, but occupies two USB ports in the back, leaving only two front ports for the rest of the accessories (GC adapter, Wii U microphone and other USB thingies). All you need to do is get two SATA SSDs, two SATA to USB cables and you're good to go.
2) one is a bit harder to set up (finding a decently priced enclosure was and still is hard for me), but occupies only 1 USB port in the back, making it a bit easier to connect GC adapter for example without using front USB ports.


I've been using the first setup for a few months now and I haven't run into a single issue yet. Second would be as perfect as it could get, but it's a bit harder to set up and a bit more pricey. As for the VC injects, I don't personally use them - I have Retroarch for that so I keep my roms on SD card, so there's that. as well.

In vWii mode from SD-Card : Gamecube games by Nintendont and Wii games by USB Loader GX v1280+ / WiiFlow can also be played from SDCard. But the SD front slot is not designed for this permanent read access, so not recommended.

Interesting. Is it okay to run Retroarch games off SD card then?

Unfinished project, one drive for both: There exist a project for using one drive for vWii and WiiU, but not finished because it seems to be complicated to set it up as normal user. The main concept was creating two partitions. First the second in the back of the drive for vWii USB Loaders, modifying the partition table in the back. And then the first partition in the front for WiiU mode. And includes modifying the partition table in the front and in the back of the drive. As the WiiU goes to format the hole drive.

That would be a really nice setup.

 

[Sypherone]

Interesting. Is it okay to run Retroarch games off SD card then?

Small applications, retrogames with size of few bytes are surely not problematic.

That would be a really nice setup.

Ya, i need to find the source again. Maybe if someone take hands on it, it can be finished now.

 

[Ettino]

Interesting. Is it okay to run Retroarch games off SD card then?

Yeah, it's fine. I run a bunch of retroarch stuff from the SD card. I run lodiine for the DS as well. Those roms are tiny anyway, so there's never any issue.

 

[leejaclane]

It doesn't, you can connect one end of the y cable to a wall plug or your TV or somethig else, so you would only use one port of the console. I've also read that some SSDs require less power and can work without a y cable. I'd try a second HDD for tje wii games.

It's generally not recommended to use a y cable plugged into 2 separate power sources; in fact, officially it's prohibited for any USB device to use a splitter cable at all, specifically for the problems that can arise from plugging one into 2 separate devices. That said the use of a y cable on 2 ports of the same device is generally fine (I do it), but officially, it's recommended to use a self-powered external hard drive if it's not capable of getting enough power from a single USB port.

Plugging it into 2 separate power sources with a splitter can be fine too, but it's a little bit more of a risk if you don't know what you're doing -- like if you just plugged it into whatever random phone charger you had handy. As I understand it the issue is with one device providing power when the other isn't, but I'm not an expert, I'm just repeating what I remember reading last year. I could be wrong about some details of why it's recommended against though.

 

[Sypherone]

@Blythe93 Found the Source :
Using the Backup GPT - allowing to use a Hard Drive for both WiiU and vWii
https://sourceforge.net/p/usbloadergx/issues/2295/

Together with another german Developer, I have found a way to partition a Hard Drive that is used in the WiiU - so in theory, it should be possible to use a Hard Drive for both WiiU and vWii - but any application that needs access to the vWii part needs to get modified.

During our test, we did the following (if you want to test yourself, this does only work with a USB hard drive (no usb pen) and you need to have Linux):

- Create a new GPT partition table on the drive.
- Add a new FAT32 or NTFS Partition at the very end of the device, leave the first part unallocated.
- Set the "Host Protected Area"-Flag on the Hard Drive ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Host_Protected_Area ) by executing "hdparm -N pXXXXXX --yes-i-know-what-i-am-doing /dev/sdX" - replace "XXXXXX" with the first sector of your partition minus 1.
- Unplug the device from your computer and reconnect it - it should now be recognized as a smaller device by your computer.
- run "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdX count=1M bs=10
- Plug the device into the WiiU and let the WiiU format the drive.

If everything worked correctly, you now have a hard drive with a WiiU partition, and a hidden NTFS partition without partition table.

The good thing about GPT is - there is a backup partition table at the end of the device.

So, the "only" thing that has to be done (I have no idea how hard this is) is to rewrite the USB Loader in two points:

1., it has to use the backup GPT without restoring the main one, and
2., ignoring the set HPA and directly write / read to sectors.

I do not exactly know, how the USB-Loaders or cIOS do communicate with the hard drive - maybe this is not even possible because of WiiU limitations.

But if it IS possible to read / write data inside the HPA area without resetting the HPA, the WiiU just sees its own partition, but the USB-Loader has access to the hidden NTFS one.

 

[Blythe93]

That's a really interesting approach. Thanks for sharing the source!

 

[Hanafuda]

So noob question on this topic, but if I understand the posts above correctly ... the only way to run Wii and GC games on Wii U from the same hard drive as Wii U games is by injecting them as VC? Which means not using nintendont/usb loader gx. Which means no rev. 1281 on the Wii games. Which means hdmi advantage of the Wii U is defeated (using TV as display) by the deflicker filter on Wii games.

Bummer if true. I've gotten very spoiled by the picture quality of Wii games using rev. 1281, not going back.

And while technically possible to work around this by storing all vWii data on the SD card slot using a large SD card, this isn't recommended?

Edit: I have not touched my Wii U yet but it's happening soon. Trying to digest all info before I start. Just read in the thread about rev 1281 that this still works on VC injects of Wii games using evWii plugin (which I'd never heard of ... so many complications). So, are "VC injects" on Wii U not natively running but instead actually running nintendont/gx loader?? Sorry, pretty confusing.

 

[Sypherone]

the only way to run Wii and GC games on Wii U from the same hard drive as Wii U games is by injecting them as VC? Which means not using nintendont/usb loader gx

Correct. Else they need to be stored on the SDCard, as only the SDCard is accessable if injecting Nintendont or USBLGX. But not recommended.

And while technically possible to work around this by storing all vWii data on the SD card slot using a large SD card, this isn't recommended?

Correct. The SDCard Slot compared to a USB port is not designed to be subjected to that level of read/write wear.

So, are "VC injects" on Wii U not natively running but instead actually running nintendont/gx loader??

Nintendont and USB Loaders are frontends to view your collection and just reloads your game. As inject they are using the WiiU`s hardware, as the vWii has its own hardware built in. They are seperate.