http://i1011.photobucket.com/albums/...Fat32guide.png
Gone has the need to partition your hard drives for the wii. It is now recommended to load via Fat32 which will be discussed here in this guide or ntfs which can be found here
Guide
This guide is based upon you having an upto date Mauifrog Softmod. In this guide I will show you how to setup a single fat32 partitioned hard drive for all your wii needs eliminating the need for multiple partitions and formats but also the need for an sd card.
Important
I don't want anyone asking were to get Iso's of games or anything remotely linked to piracy, the guide is for the purpose of backing up your legally purchased Wii games for storage and play off of a Fat32 formatted drive. Anyone who asks will have their post removed and will receive an infraction or possibly even banned! You have been warned.
Things you will need
1) A Usb device and it is highly recommended you check out the usb compatibility list
2) A means of formatting the drive, ie PC, Mac or Linux.
3) Easeus Partition Manager Home Edition
Chapter 1 - Formatting your Hard drive
Window PC
1) Install Easeus Partition Manager Home Edition which you should have already downloaded earlier
2) Hook your hard drive up to a usb port on your PC and make a not of the drive letter
3) Run Easeus partition manager
You should now be looking at something like this:
4) Select your hard drive by the letter you noted earlier and right click on it then select delete and then ok. (Be sure it is the correct drive as it will be deleted!)
5) Your hard drive should now be showing as unallocated and should look like this:
6) Right click on your unallocated partition and select create, you should now have these options:
* Partition label : Wii - (I always name mine Wii, but it can be named whatever you like)
* Create as : Primary
* Drive letter : W - (Again I always use W for Wii, but it can be anything you like)
* File system : Fat32
* Cluster size - (for the purpose of running Gamecube games from your hd we will now be formatting to 32kb clusters)
Note: If the first time you partition your drive there is no option to select cluster size press ok and then right click on the drive again and select format and the option should appear
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7) Size and position
It should automatically be set like this:
* Unallocated space should be 0
* Partition size should be whatever the size of the drive is
* Unallocated space after should be 0
* Click ok
Example:
8) Set drive as active
* Right click your hard drive
* Set active
* Click ok
9) Format
* Navigate to the top left corner under the view tab and click apply
* Click yes on the pop up window
* Several seconds/minutes later you should get a pop up saying the operation has been successful
* Click ok and then exit the program, your drive has been formatted.
Mac OS Formatting - By Narse1979
**Big thanks to Narse1979 for this!! Go HERE and Click THANKS!!**
1 - Connect your USB HDD to the Mac.
- In some cases an initialize window will pop up when you connect the HDD
- Click initialize and it will take you into Disk Utility - If it doesn't, then go to Disk Utility
- In Disk Utility click on your USB HDD - Look at the bottom for "SMART STATUS" - "OK"
- If it does not say "OK" - Go to Disk Utility --> Click "First Aid" tab --> Click "Verify" --> Click "Repair Permissions"
- If an error appears click on Repair Permissions again and this error should now be gone
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2 - Select the USB HDD you wish to format from the pane selection on the left.
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3 - Now select "Erase". Keep the same options for the Volume Format as pictured below.
- Skip this step if your USB HDD is new and go to Step 4
http://i1011.photobucket.com/albums/...ormatting3.png
- If you want to securely delete data from the partition(s) on your USB HDD then click "Security Options" and a pane will pop up.
- Select the option that best suits you --> Click OK --> Now Click ERASE
http://i1011.photobucket.com/albums/...ormatting4.png
4 - Click the "Partition" tab
- Select how many partitions you want from the Volume Scheme drop down menu - Choose 1 Partition
- If you want you can rename the partition - We have gone for "WII GAMES"
- Select MS-DOS (FAT) from the format drop down menu.
http://i1011.photobucket.com/albums/...ormatting5.png
5 - Now to remove any GPT partitions. Select "Options" and select the option pictured below --- Click OK.
http://i1011.photobucket.com/albums/...ormatting6.png
6 - Click Apply and let Disk Utility format your USB HDD to FAT32.
GNU/Linux
Here are instructions on how to format a drive to FAT32 with GNU/Linux by both graphical and textual means. If you prefer to us a GUI, I recommend GParted. It is a very powerful and common tool provided with most distros. If not provided by default, it will probably be available through the distro's package manager. Else you can download the source code of the latest version from here and compile it. If your distro comes with something else (i.e. Kubuntu comes with the KDE Partition Manager), feel free to use that if you wish. If your comfortable going the command line route, everything you need will almost certainly be installed on your system already. If not, you'll need to install dosfstools. For both of these options, you need to be logged into either the root account or an account with administrative privileges.
Graphical Formatting (With GParted)
GParted will open up displaying your internal hard drive. Probably called something like “/dev/sda” or “/dev/hda.” It should look something like this:
http://oi42.tinypic.com/bhc9qq.jpg
Select the drop down list in the upper right-hand corner and select the device that you wish to format (possibly named “/dev/sdb”). It should be easy to find as it will probably be much smaller than your internal hard drive. When in doubt, remove all other devices, refresh the list (Ctrl + R), and then select the only device that isn't your HD.
http://oi42.tinypic.com/2604tux.jpg
Make sure the device is unmounted. Right-click on the long bar that represents you devices file system and click “Unmount.” If that option is grayed out then the device is already unmounted.
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Right-click on file system bar again and select the “Format to >” option. Click on “FAT32.”
http://i42.tinypic.com/24lkkdk.jpg
Now click the “Apply” button at the top of the window.
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A final sanity check will pop up and, if every thing looks correct, click “Apply” and wait. If you don't get any errors, you're all set!
http://i40.tinypic.com/e61xz9.jpg
Textual Formatting
You'll need to know the name of the disk and partition that you're going to format. Open up your preferred terminal emulator and run the following:
Code:
fdisk -l
A list of disks and their respective partitions will pop up. You're internal hard drive will be listed first and will probably be called “/dev/sda” or “/dev/hda.” After that your external drives will be listed (the first one might be “/dev/sdb”). If more than one external drive is listed, the best way to know which one is the correct one is to remove all devices other than the one you want and re-run the command. You'll also need the partition name which is the disk name followed by a number, usually one (i.e. “/dev/sdb1”). You can find out for sure what it is by looking at the disk information displayed in the command (it will be at the bottom underneath the word “Device”)
http://i40.tinypic.com/22et05.jpg
Nekt you need to unmount the drive by running this:
Code:
umount /dev/xxxy
Replace “xxx” with the disk name and “y” with the partition number.
http://i44.tinypic.com/sc6vsw.jpg
Time to do the actual formatting. Run this:
Code:
mkdosfs -v -c -F 32 -I /dev/xxxy
Replace “xxx” with the disk name and “y” with the partition number.
http://i39.tinypic.com/29o4imq.jpg
This step is optional, but highly recommended. This will check the file system for errors and, if it finds any, attempt to fix them:
Code:
dosfsck -av /dev/xxxy
Again, replace “xxx” with the disk name and “y” with the partition number. If you don't get any errors, you're all set!
http://i43.tinypic.com/2rot01u.jpg
Copyright Bryan Cuneo (2011). It made available under the terms of the CC-BY-SA license.
Chapter 2 - Loading your games to your hard drive
Copying your original discs to your hard drive with your usb loader
CFG Usb loader v70
1) Start your loader
2) Insert your Wii game
3) Go to the main tab
4) Then go to install and you are done.
Wiiflow r417
1) Start your loader
2) Insert your Wii game
3) Go to the settings tab
4) Navigate to the install tab and you are done.
Usb loader GX 2.3
1) Start your loader
2) Insert your Wii game
3) The loader will ask if you want to rip the game
4) Press yes and you are done.
Transferring games from your Windows PC to your hard drive
Option 1 - Wii Game Manager
Get Wii game manager here
1) Create a folder on the root of your hard drive called WBFS
2) Load up Wii game manager:
3) Go to open - open .iso files (List A)
4) Navigate to where your .iso files are
5) Right click on the game title and click 'create .wbfs File(s) With Subdirectories - No Split (important - if the file is larger than 4gb then the file must be split)
6) A pop up box will appear and you need to navigate to your WBFS folder that you created on your Hard drive and press ok:
Option 2 - Wii Backup Manager
Get Wii Backup Manager here
1) Create a folder on the root of your hard drive called WBFS
2) Load up Wii Backup Manager
3) Go to the Add tab
4) Select file and navigate to where your .iso file is located
5) Tick the box next to the game:
6) Select the Transfer tab and then WBFS from the drop down menu
7) A pop up box will appear and you need to navigate to your WBFS folder that you created on your Hard drive and press ok:
Option 3 - Wii Backup Fusion - windows 32bit
Get Wii Backup Fusion here
1) Create a folder on the root of your hard drive called WBFS
2) Load up Wii Backup Fusion
3) Select the load tab in the bottom left corner
4) navigate to where your .iso file is located
5) Click on the game then go to the transfer to image tab
6) Change the directory to your WBFS folder on your hard drive
7) Make sure the image format is Wii Backup File System Container (*.wbfs)
8) Click ok
Linux and MAC users
Linux - Wii Backup Fusion
Get Wii backup Fusion here and then follow option 3 from 'Transferring games from your Windows PC to your hard drive'
Successfully tested on:
- Linux: Ubuntu 11.04 'Natty Narwhal
- Linux: Mint 11
**for GNU/Linux does not seem work with Kubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot
MAC - Wii Backup Fusion
Get Wii backup Fusion here and then follow option 3 from 'Transferring games from your Windows PC to your hard drive'
Successfully tested on:
- Mac OS X: 10.5 Leopard (ppc)
Credits
A special thank you to Krank and Cile for the previous Fat32 guide and narse 1979 for all things MAC related and dniMretsaM for all things Linux related
