Hacking cloning wii U USB HDD?

[WiiFanAix]

He literally said "on homebrew" ! Could you please stop with Linux for a second ? Thank you.

 

[V10lator]

He literally said "on homebrew" !

Homebrew won't be faster as Wii Us disc management from settings.

Could you please stop with Linux for a second ?

3rd tool is for Mac, last two for Windows.

 

[zektor]

Old thread I know, but perhaps HDD Rawcopy would work:

https://hddguru.com/software/HDD-Raw-Copy-Tool/

I used this tool to image an Xbox formatted hard drive (2TB) to another 2TB drive. The file system on the drive is xbox specific and not recognizable by any PC, so similar situation.

If someone has the time (and space) to use this and raw rip their entire Wii U USB hard drive to another this is something that may work.

 

[dextructor]

If someone has the time (and space) to use this and raw rip their entire Wii U USB hard drive to another this is something that may work.

Ow yes, it works!

Thanks so much for this insightful tool.

I tried cloning this morning from the mechanical 1TB HDD (HGST Travelstar 7K1000) using the USB controller from the Seagate Expansion. Since I didn't have any other mechanical HDD with the same capacity I used an Samsung 860 EVO connected to the OWC Mercury On-The-Go Pro.

Installed the software and let's go... It take some time, to clone the mechanical HDD to an SSD connected to USB 3.0 it consistently transferred at 49MB/s and it took almost 6 hours to complete, so it was time to test it.

Removed the Seagate Expansion from the HDD and connected to the SSD > Then connected on the Y USB cable on the Wii U. Power on and worked very well, it populated the menu more quickly, and the games open more quickly as well (it not night and day, but you'll see the difference, trust me).

So I tested the SSD with other SATA to USB adapters, first it was the OWC, and it didn't recognize at all, even if I tried to format again in the System Preferences, no just no.

Then with other adapters from Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex and no, didn't recognized in every way (it was detected/working on Windows, so it's the Wii U being picky)

So in conclusion: YES you CAN clone the Wii U external USB HDD, but in my testing It WON'T work with different USB adapters

Maybe with more time I can test it with clonezilla, since it can "clone" to different sizes of target destination and other tricks, but there's more people using Windows and/or Windows tools on the consumer space... So using Linux tools it's a quest for another day.

 

[V10lator]

Ow yes, it works!

So a confimation of what we tell since years: A 1:1 raw disc copy will work just fine.

USB 3.0 it consistently transferred at 49MB/s

480 Mbit/s / 8 = 60 MB/s ... - Protocol overhead = ~50 MB/s... So this was USB 2.0, not USB 3.0. Check your setup, something wasn't USB 3 compatible.
In other words: your subjective observation was that you're using USB 3.0 while an objektive look shows it was USB 2.0.

it populated the menu more quickly and the games open more quickly as well

Do you have exact data? Like how long did MK8 need to load before and how long does it take now? Or any other game? Or menu loading? Repeat: Do you have exact data? Like "Action X took 5000ms before but now it's just 2500ms"? In case you can't provide such data I'm sorry to say but it's just your subjection. Looking objektive at it there is zero speed difference.

It WON'T work with different USB adapters

Yes, it will. We do this since years... This is just another subjective observation from your end showing how bad Nintendo was at implementing the usb-storage protocol...

even if I tried to format again

Confiming what I Just said...

Post automatically merged: May 18, 2023

Maybe with more time I can test it with clonezilla, since it can "clone" to different sizes of target destination and other tricks, but there's more people using Windows and/or Windows tools on the consumer space... So using Linux tools it's a quest for another day.

No, no, no and no! Changing size or doing other tricks is anything but not a raw 1:1 disc copy! Also clonezilla is anything but a Linux Tool. On Linux you simply use https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/dd.1.html (dd if=/dev/sdX of=/dev/sdY bs=4k).

 

[dextructor]

In other words: your subjective observation was that you're using USB 3.0 while an objektive look shows it was USB 2.0

No problems, but considering that the source for cloning was a mechanical HDD (HGST Travelstar 7K1000) and I never seen an mechanical HDD perform awesomely specially if you consider block-to-block cloning, but I can't be right all the time.

Do you have exact data? Like how long did MK8 need to load before and how long does it take now? Or any other game? Or menu loading?

At first glance may sound a little harsh but I like your way of thinking. "Until you have data to support your claims, you only have an opinion or theory, and everyone has the right to have one." So I took some time to test it, using the same SATA to USB adapter that my mechanical HDD was using. And considering that the mechanical HDD was 7200RPM with 32MB of cache it's not bad, but let's show some results. Of course that having a capture card would give me more accurate results, but I did my best.

Every single test was performed after the menu was fully populated, then after the A button was pressed until the action was finished. After the end of all games on this list was tested the console was shut down and begin again repeating the same conditions.

Populate main menu - 6 Pages of games

HGST Travelstar 7K1000	Samsung 860 EVO
30.89	26.67
29.99	24.99
28.50	26.01

Opening Zelda Twilight Princess - Until Black screen before Title Screen

HGST Travelstar 7K1000	Samsung 860 EVO
17.72	15.80
16.99	16.00
17.04	16.02

Opening Bayonetta - Black screen until before movie

HGST Travelstar 7K1000	Samsung 860 EVO
16.93	15.34
16.80	15.80
17.06	15.84

Resume game - Proving Ground Ruins

HGST Travelstar 7K1000	Samsung 860 EVO
13.38	13.01
13.73	12.52
13.62	12.65

Opening Bayonetta 2 - until blue circle logo

HGST Travelstar 7K1000	Samsung 860 EVO
17.42	17.10
17.92	16.64
18.12	16.83

Begin game - A Remembrance of Time 2nd Climax - Until starts movie

HGST Travelstar 7K1000	Samsung 860 EVO
27.13	26.62
27.00	26.25
27.53	26.82

Opening Zelda Wind Waker HD - Until Black screen before Title Screen

HGST Travelstar 7K1000	Samsung 860 EVO
15.82	14.81
15.42	15.01
15.58	15.05

Opening Mario Kart 8 - Until Press A to Start

HGST Travelstar 7K1000	Samsung 860 EVO
25.98	25.08
26.27	25.07
25.50	25.08

Start 150cc Leaf Cup - From OK button until the game loaded music starting playing

HGST Travelstar 7K1000	Samsung 860 EVO
11.57	11.05
12.67	11.03
12.33	10.94

Opening Mario Party 10 - Until screen spinning and selection modes

HGST Travelstar 7K1000	Samsung 860 EVO
20.99	20.27
20.88	20.23
20.94	20.29

Chaos Castle - Until Beginning

HGST Travelstar 7K1000	Samsung 860 EVO
12.47	12.40
13.27	12.81
13.26	12.82

Opening Injustice - Movie before Title Screen

HGST Travelstar 7K1000	Samsung 860 EVO
30.41	29.21
29.96	29.44
30.75	29.17

Opening Batman Arkham - Until Black screen before Title Screen

HGST Travelstar 7K1000	Samsung 860 EVO
19.74	17.96
19.22	17.84
19.01	17.92

Resume game from last check point

HGST Travelstar 7K1000	Samsung 860 EVO
11.32	10.15
11.76	09.84
11.88	10.35

Opening Zelda Breath of the Wild - Until Black screen before Title Screen

HGST Travelstar 7K1000	Samsung 860 EVO
23.70	20.68
24.15	20.07
22.94	20.12

Resume last check point Oman Au Shrine - Until appeared in screen

HGST Travelstar 7K1000	Samsung 860 EVO
50.32	39.45
47.98	39.86
47.94	40.21

The difference in some cases isn't that great, but in some cases like Zelda Breath of the Wild, I was really surprised on how much time was saved resuming the game. The other games it it's sometimes minimal.

showing how bad Nintendo was at implementing the usb-storage protocol

If I use the same SATA to USB adapter if I put an HDD(or SSD) that is compatible with this specific adapter probably it will be detected and if it was cloned worked without any problems.

The issue begin if I switch the USB adapter, I tested another SATA to USB adapter today, it was an ORICO 2588us3 and if I put the mechanical HDD in this case. It is recognized inside the System Settings but only if I try to format, not to copy/manage data, but it don't populate the games menu. The same thing applies to the SSD.

No, no, no and no! Changing size or doing other tricks is anything but not a raw 1:1 disc copy!

Ok, if you say that this file system of Nintendo it's so damn restrict I believe in you.

Thanks for the input

 

[zektor]

Really glad to hear that it works and I thank you for testing. I suspected it would but it is excellent to have an actual test performed.

I have used it in the past to create images of drives as well as straight up clone. It's nice to store a full disk image if you have the space too.

ALSO, something else to try:

Try to rip the WIi U hard drive to a compressed hard disk image using the tool (.IMGC) I believe if I am not mistaken that if you do this you can restore the image to a smaller HDD media. So for example if you have a 2TB Wii U HDD using only 700GB, you should be able to rip it to compressed HDD image (which will end up being 700GB...just the data portion) and then restore that image to a 1TB SSD for example and see what happens.

At least, that is what I recall from my old memory.... give it a whirl if you have the time. No guarantee that this will work, but IIRC when you use the rawcopy tool to rip in this fashion it is not really "compressing" anything. In reality it is only ripping the areas it sees data and avoiding the areas of space with no data written. But then again I have no idea what is happening with the Wii U proprietary file system if you do this. I imagine it is being carried along as even it will be seen as data of course, but since we still know so little about it we do not know if it stores HDD capacity characteristics or is "simple".

I realize that this flies in the face of 1:1 RAW copying, but its worth a shot for science. Again I have no idea if this will truly work, but I have seen stranger things work in my years. It is only going to cost you the time to test.