Hacking Friend's WD MyBook and USB Loaders

[techboy]

Hi all,

My friend called me this morning about his Xmas gift. He got a 1.5TB WD MyBook for his wii, and it will not work. He called me after USB Loader GX insisted there were no partitions on it. He selected "Format" when asked, but it then said "No Partitions Found"

I used a VNC connection to his computer to take a look for myself.

Disk Management showed one big NTFS partition. I copied the installer for the special software to the desktop, then deleted the NTFS partition. I created a single primary, unformatted partition, then used other software to format to FAT32 (Windows offered only NTFS). He put it back in the wii, and GX still insisted there were no partitions on it.

I tried to format it to WBFS on his PC. I've tried two different tools (WBFS Manager 3 and a command line tool), and neither will format it. The WBFS Manager says the format failed. The cmdline tool says it succeeded, but the drive is still FAT32. Nothing will format this drive to WBFS.

I've also tried marking the partition active, but as I expected, there was no change. There are several others who report this drive worked out of the box.

Any clues on what's up with this drive?

 

[xzxero]

try using wii backup manager or easeus partiton master to fully format it to FAT32

http://sites.google.com/site/completesg/ba...-backup-manager

http://www.easeus-software.com/download/epm.zip

I had a 500gb of this mybook.

it worked fine so it should for you.

 

[techboy]

Thanks. I'll have him try it and let you know how it goes.

 

[techboy]

OK, I tried them out with him over VNC. I've also spent time with trying various other things.

The EPM software happily worked. It created a new FAT32 partition and formatted it. WiiBackupManager claimed to format the drive, but didn't actually do anything. I received a Format OK message, and the log shows the format succeeding, but when you load the device to add games, I receive a message saying it's FAT32 and that I need to create a WBFS folder...This stupid drive will not format to WBFS.

I updated his GX to rev862, which fixed the "No Partitions" issue, and let it happily see the FAT32 as an acceptable partition. I installed a Wii Backup Disc ISO (only thing small enough to email him) to the FAT32. The loader dumped when he tried to start it. He tried to install Elebits & Naruto from DVD, but the loader dumped both times after clicking YES to the "Install a Game?" He also mentioned that the loader would hang if the drive was connected before the "Waiting for slow USB Device".

We've also spent time trying another loader (Configurable USB Loader rev50). This loader never even got fully up. It always hung at the loading screen with the drive connected. If the drive was disconnected, it started searching for USB devices. If he connected it at that point, the loader never detects it and times out. I tried IOS222 and IOS249, neither made any difference.

The verdict on this: Stay away from WD MyBook drives. They don't work worth crap especially for a USB Loader.

He's now planning to take it back and get a different, non-WD, drive.

 

[SFenton]

My WD 1 TB works great! Keep trying...

 

[techboy]

He's taking it back and getting a seagate. I've tried everything with this garbage drive. A tool I use to analyze and write zeros to drives wouldn't even see it, and it sees any other external HDD i've used it with.

If plugged into the wii, every stinking loader we tried froze or code dumped when launching or installing a game to this thing. Most of the time, if it was plugged in, the loaders wouldn't even start (froze at a loading screen).