Hacking NTFS-3G (read/write support for NTFS)

[Dteyn]

Sorry if this has been asked to death, I did a search but couldn't find anything.

Can the NTFS-3G driver (open source driver for the NTFS filesystem, used by Linux among many other operating systems) be integrated into the USB Loader code? Obviously, this would allow us to use NTFS formatted drives with the USB Loader. This would be preferable to WBFS, since the images could be pre-scrubbed using WiiScrubber (providing the same space saving effect), and we would have the added benefit of stability (no more corrupted games) and plug-and-play readability with most operating systems.

More information about NTFS-3G is here: http://www.ntfs-3g.org

And the latest stable source (released April 2, 2009) is here: http://www.ntfs-3g.org/ntfs-3g-2009.4.4.tgz

The reason I ask is, unless I'm mistaken, Waninkoko (or someone else working on the USB Loader) added the USB2 code from open source code, and some talk is out there about adding TinySMB code to the USB Loader. I really wish I could help, but I don't have any C/C++ coding experience.

Anyone?

 

[piratesmack]

Waninoko said he doesn't really like NTFS, so I doubt he'll add it to USB loader.

EXT2 would be better, anyway. There is no need for a journaling filesystem

 

[MightyMouse]

personally i dont believe its viable to add NTFS support to the loader its a failure of a FS.

on a more Wii-ish note, the reason the games load so fast and only take up small amounts of space is due to the way that WBFS both handles and deals with the games data.

adding NTFS would probably only slow it down.

 

[Dteyn]

Even if Waninkoko and others don't like NTFS, I'm sure many others would appreciate the ability to natively read/write the drive on their PC. I was thinking more along the lines of the people custom modding the USB Loader, integrating NTFS-3G to the USB Loader source code, rather than Waninkoko adding it (considering he usually doesn't take suggestions).

Also unless I'm mistaken, a game on WBFS takes up as much space as a scrubbed game on FAT32 or NTFS (minus any FS overhead, which I'm sure isn't much).

Anyways it was just a suggestion, take it for what it is.

Edit: Err wait, yeah the files still take up 4.3gb on NTFS, but still, on a huge hard drive like 500gb or 1TB I don't think it makes too much difference (except for the mega-pirates).

 

[piratesmack]

Even if Waninkoko and others don't like NTFS, I'm sure many others would appreciate the ability to natively read/write the drive on their PC. I was thinking more along the lines of the people custom modding the USB Loader, integrating NTFS-3G to the USB Loader source code, rather than Waninkoko adding it (considering he usually doesn't take suggestions).

Also unless I'm mistaken, a game on WBFS takes up as much space as a scrubbed game on FAT32 or NTFS (minus any FS overhead, which I'm sure isn't much).

Anyways it was just a suggestion, take it for what it is.

Well fat32 definitely wouldn't work. It can't handle files larger than 4 GB, so you wouldn't be able to copy games like Brawl to it.
Adding support for NTFS is possible, but I don't think it'd be the best filesystem for this.

It would be awesome if support for a different filesystem were added, though.

 

[MightyMouse]

i'd say ext2 would be the best option if this route was taken.

 

[djtaz]

Its possible to do , but it would mean all games have to go on as 4.3 gigs instead of the space saving sizes capable with WBFS and the wii wouldnt read them as fast leading to a lag in some games.

Look at how many were asking for 6x read speeds for gamma loader and ur asking them to slow it down on the HD system ? lol

 

[Dteyn]

EXT2 wouldn't be that bad, I'm sure it would be even easier to integrate than NTFS-3G considering it's a native linux FS.

I guess all I'm saying is WBFS isn't ideal, with the corruption issue and the inability to read/write natively.

Regarding writing the entire ISO file, maybe a PC-side utility could be written (similar to WiiScrubber) that actually shrinks the size of the ISO file according to the number of sectors blanked out, so it doesn't take up the full 4.3gb. Then it could be stored on ext2, ntfs or any other filesystem, and take up the same amount of space as it would on wbfs.

Maybe I'm assuming too much, but I think the USB Loader could be made to handle such an image.

The main reason for making this post is that I think time would be well spent implementing a time tried/trusted FS like ext2, rather than develop a custom FS like WBFS that will inevitably have bugs (such as the corrupted games issue).

I apologize if I'm assuming too much, I just wanted to put the idea out there.

 

[Diffusion]

Regarding writing the entire ISO file, maybe a PC-side utility could be written (similar to WiiScrubber) that actually shrinks the size of the ISO file according to the number of sectors blanked out, so it doesn't take up the full 4.3gb. .

Think that the WiiScrubber author is already doing something like that.

QUOTE(Dack @ Jan 29 2009, 12:17 AM) The Flatmii people got in touch with me a few weeks ago after getting hold of a beta of WiiScrubber I'd released to one person.

I've implemented a similar thing to ISZ but more geared towards Wii images and hopefully they will be implementing it if they ever bother reading their email

These are, to all intents, scrubbed and shrunk files that still work on 3.4 as no Trucha signing is involved.

A new version of Wiiscrubber (provisionally titled 1.40 the next degeneration) will be out in the next few weeks (yes I've gone back to working on it as no-one else seemed to want to) that supports these format files as well as having the trim option, now a horrendous bug has been fixed. Should be out before the Aniversary of the first release.

 

[Beware]

Edit: Err wait, yeah the files still take up 4.3gb on NTFS, but still, on a huge hard drive like 500gb or 1TB I don't think it makes too much difference (except for the mega-pirates).

Compress the image. Decompressed, all Wii images are NTFS. WBFS allows compressed images to be read which is why they are so small. I see no reason why NTFS supported couldn't be added, whether or not it's a good idea is a whole other argument. I don't really even see the point anymore with the WBFS tool for Linux and Windows (OS X can't read NTFS or WBFS). It makes infinitely more sense to just use a basic EXT2 (which I believe WBFS is really just a modified EXT2).

 

[carbonyle]

No need for NTFS: closed filesystem and not for the wii.
WBFS is very good and with GUI like WBFS Manager 2.0 you can manage your games like in windows (even better with two panel)
On WBFS partition the iso take less space (and wbfs can extract it).
Even if someone code a "ntfs-usb-loader" I'd preffer keep another one

 

[Dteyn]

Regarding slowing down the read speeds, I don't think it would make that considerable of a difference.

Take into consideration that 6x DVD read speed = 66.6 mbit/s.
While USB 2.0 read speed = 480 mbit/s.
Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_device_bandwidths

So lets say (for sake of discussion) that WBFS reads at the full 480 mbit/s that USB2.0 can provide. Lets say changing it to EXT2 or NTFS lowers the read speed by a factor of 4.

That's still 120 mbit/s, or almost 2x faster than a retail disc at 6x DVD read speed of 66.6 mbit/s.

Just food for thought.

 

[WiiPower]

FAT32 would be ok, you only would have to split files at 1GB.
NTFS might be a problem as the driver is really complex and requires a lot of resources. (ok i don't know that, but i'm certain about it, so correct me if it's wrong)
EXT2 could actually work as it's not as complex as NTFS and there are lots of open source drivers for available for it.

But in general there's one big main problem:
The filesystem driver has to be in the cIOS, so the more complex the driver is, the more complex would be the cIOS. Oh and accessing files which can be splitted into 1000 chunks is more complex, but i don't know how much.

 

[Dteyn]

Think that the WiiScrubber author is already doing something like that.

... except that WiiScrubber still leaves the files at 4.3gb (without being compressed). My point was that the files should be actually trimmed to remove the excess data (not just fill it with FF or 00), so they do not need to be compressed. I mean it's not like they're being burned to DVD-R's anymore.

Actually it might be easier to just extract the game partition.bin from each ISO, and let USB Loader load that as the game image (if possible).

 

[koji2009]

Beware: WBFS doesn't do any compression to the wii images... When you transfer a game to a WBFS drive, only the game partition is transferred. That is, the update and all the empty space is removed which is why it's so small, usually a couple hundred megs smaller than just a standard scrubbed game.

 

[goku21temp]

shitty linux and mac eletists are the very worst thing on the whole internets ..

 

[Beware]

Think that the WiiScrubber author is already doing something like that.

... except that WiiScrubber still leaves the files at 4.3gb (without being compressed). My point was that the files should be actually trimmed to remove the excess data (not just fill it with FF or 00), so they do not need to be compressed. I mean it's not like they're being burned to DVD-R's anymore.

Actually it might be easier to just extract the game partition.bin from each ISO, and let USB Loader load that as the game image (if possible).

The issue with this is if it truly removes the data (when it's not compressed) it cannot be burned to a disk and read properly by the Wii. There are TONS of people who still use DVD-R's. It would be an awful, awful idea to implement that kind of thing when the image can very easily be compressed and still burned to a disk. USB is about 6X faster than reading from a DVD, so even the minimal amount of slow-down that is experienced from decompressing on the fly is not noticed in the slightest. It would be useless.

 

[Dteyn]

koji2009: Makes perfect sense, so in theory it would be possible to add support for ext2 (making the drive readable in many OS's without the use of a GUI manager) and just copy over the game partition.bin, effectively scrubbing the game in the process.

goku21temp: Go back to /b/

Beware: It would still be possible to reconstruct the game image with just the partition.bin, as koji2009 indicates this is already happening, I assume when you extract the image from the drive using the WBFS GUI, it rebuilds the game structure, pops in the game partition.bin and voila, the game can be burned as per a standard ISO.

 

[Beware]

shitty linux and mac eletists are the very worst thing on the whole internets ..

Where did this even come from? Nobody said anything remotely like this.

@Koji: Ah, so it can't be burned to a disk if it was dumped using the USB loader. That's unfortunate.

EDIT: Yes, I'm sure it could be reconstructed, but if the filesize is not correct, they Wii will not read it correctly (if at all).

 

[Don Killah]

ntfs shouldn't be the next step, if there's ever another one, let it be ext2.
wbfs is just fine the way it is, we just need to know how to mount a drive... which ain't really hard.