Wii Wii Homebrew: what's the consensus on USB loading?

[pannekook]

Hi all,
I am trying to figure out how to correctly format a new USB drive for my wii.
See the problem is that I modded my wii 10 years ago at this point, and when I did it the stick I used was only 30GB. I just picked up a 256GB SSD USB 3.2 flash drive and I'm lowkey struggling to find any good info that was either clearly written by a person or isn't 8 years old. I saw somewhere that USB 3.0+ drives might need an external power supply?? and also I can't format my drive as FAT32 through the usual windows utilities. Unfortunately I haven't geeked out over any of this in a while and I don't feel like I'm as good at Computer as I used to be ~_~ any help would be appreciated

 

[nobitakun]

USB 3.x has different power specs than USB 2.0. For Wii, you would better use a regular 2.5" HDD with a USB 2.0 enclosure, the speed gains you're getting are minimal with an SSD, which is overkill. As the USB is 2.0, even the HDD will saturate it.

Anyways, read the device specs, it is very rare that even a USB 2.0 can't power it up.

EDIT: Sorry, I forgot to tell you how to format into FAT32 your drive. From the UI you can't do it, for some Microsoft stupid reason. You need to open the CMD with admin privileges, then type the following:

format /FS:FAT32 H: (replace H: with your drive letter) then press enter.

It is supposed to format the drive.

 

[MasterEn]

i remember finding a program that did formatting for various drives. you might try looking for that.
here's a guide that i found about wii hacking. you should only need to find the basic programs to run on there since you already modded the wii.

Wii Hacks Guide

The complete guide to modding your Wii, vWii, and Wii mini

wii.hacks.guide

 

[Stookymalarkey]

I'm using a 2.5 external hard drive that's using the USB 3.0 standard and never had any issues with it. I had to format it to the Fat32 so the Wii can recognize it but I've yet to run into any issues with it.

 

[Rebecca]

Hi, I have two modded Wii consoles and they use different USB drives, both work.

The first one is a general run off the mill Kingston traveler 128GB thumbdrive. The second is one that's very small Sandisk 256 gb ultra fit usb 3.1. None of them need extra power to run.

As to formatting, I stick with the good-and-tried sd memory card formatter from the SD organization.

For any more up-to-date info, you can check the resources by wii hacks guide and Blaine Locklair on youtube.

Best of luck!

 

[thecrow2313]

I used EaseUS Partition Master to create a split partition. NTFS for Wii & FAT32 for GameCube
I had used this guide to homebrew Wii & Wii U

 

[Stookymalarkey]

I used EaseUS Partition Master to create a split partition. NTFS for Wii & FAT32 for GameCube
I had used this guide to homebrew Wii & Wii U

For the Wii, I believe that the drive must be FAT32 to be recognized at all. Also, you don't need to have a separate partition for the GameCube games in this situation since the Gamecube games are kept in a separate folder. I haven't used a modded Wii U, so the partition might be needed there.

 

[thecrow2313]

For the Wii, I believe that the drive must be FAT32 to be recognized at all. Also, you don't need to have a separate partition for the GameCube games in this situation since the Gamecube games are kept in a separate folder. I haven't used a modded Wii U, so the partition might be needed there.

That is what the split partition is for. You can play Wii & GameCube backups from the hard drive. NTFS for Wii & FAT32 for GameCube. Load the games from hard drive using usb loader gx or other homebrew app.