Hacking USB Loader GX

[Clutz450]

You said the above in the modmii neek instructions. Doesn't the latest 8.1 priiloader allow booting the dol for usbLGX directly rather than a forwarder? I think I read somewhere that it would work that way. If not then I guess I need to figure out how to make the forwarder work. I installed a channel forwarder originally in my system menu to boot UsbLGX directly but when I "installed" the only USB Loader GX listed in priiloader it didn't work. I'm not able to check at the moment but I'm pretty sure I don't have the latest priiloader anyway and will update that later today.

I don't know what the latest version of PriiLoader is but I do know you can update it from inside PriiLoader itself if you are connected to the internet.

I think there may be issues if you tried to boot the USB Loader GX dol itself but I can't remember. But using the forwarder dol will make it easier to update and manage the loader overall and is what is recommended. You can download the forwarder dol from here.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/usbloadergx/files/Releases/Forwarders dols/

Let me know if you need anymore help.

 

[GreyWolf]

You said the above in the modmii neek instructions. Doesn't the latest 8.1 priiloader allow booting the dol for usbLGX directly rather than a forwarder? I think I read somewhere that it would work that way. If not then I guess I need to figure out how to make the forwarder work. I installed a channel forwarder originally in my system menu to boot UsbLGX directly but when I "installed" the only USB Loader GX listed in priiloader it didn't work. I'm not able to check at the moment but I'm pretty sure I don't have the latest priiloader anyway and will update that later today.

Don't use the loader's dol. There is a dol of the forwarder in GX's repository on Sourceforge that you can use to install in Priiloader. (Yes, it works on 0.8+) If you use the main dol it's a pain when you need to update it.

This is for regular Wiis. AFAIK there is no way to autoboot the vWii environment.

 

[gamingsincethe80s]

If there's an official release, it will be here.
the developer is a member of this forum and posted his previous work here.
Overjoy said to me he would like to make a clean, final, version before stopping his work on it. I don't know if he continued working on it since then. Maybe he lost interest, or just don't have time. a release is still a possibility, but don't expect it soon I guess.

Thanks for the update Cyan, and thanks a million for the work you do on USB Loader GX - it is literally the hub of my gaming system. I tried Wiiflow once but USB Loader blows it away

 

[ngs428]

Copy/move or redump your NAND to USB.
set the correct path in the loader
Generate the neek files for USB (uneek+di) and copy to usb:/sneek/ folder

the partition needs to be FAT32
I don't remember if it needs to be the first one, but if you already use gamecube then your drive is correctly set up.


this way you can have both Sneek for SD and Uneek for USB. Just selecting the path to your emuNAND use the correct kernel.bin (S or U)

I am copying my nand to my USB hard drive (and plan to delete the NAND from my SD if this works). I will try Uneek exclusively. The SD SNEEK setup is just not working me. Hopefully all goes well. I will surely report back.

EDIT: Copied my nand folder from the SD to the root of my FAT32 formatted hard drive. Same directory as my working Nintendont Gamecube Games. Set the emunand path to USB2:/nand and the emunand channel to USB2:/nand (Not sure what the emunand channel is??). Compiled Uneek+DI and saved the SNEEK folder to the root of the USB, same FAT32 partition as the nand. Booted up the Motorheroz game which is set to use Neek. Right to a black screen. No warning message in USBloadergx this time (I am on USB). The only thing I can think of is that I need to be on USB 1 for this to work. In windows disk management I see this https://www.dropbox.com/s/x7yehyjq5b6lg6w/Screenshot 2016-02-23 21.35.08.png?dl=0. Also as mentioned above, I have to select USB 2.

If I flip my Hard drive around and have the usb2 as NTFS with the Wii games will there be an issue loading them? I would then have usb1 as fat32 with GameCube and my NAND and Sneek folder.

On a side note:
I went into my SD card to copy and for some reason there were a bunch of what looked like nand folders on the root of my SD, folders like import, shared1, shared2, sys, ticket and tmp. Not sure how those go there, but they were empty for the most part. Shared1 had an empty "content.map" file 0KB. My SNEEK install may have created those.

 

[ToneL]

Quick update. All seems to be working fine. I have nintendont running my GC games now. I haven't extracted saves from my gamecube card yet (not sure if I will. May just set it to emulate for new games only that haven't been played in a while).

I guess everything NAND wise is working as the kids tried to play Active Life Outdoor challenge and it got stuck on reading memory until I set emu to off. (Might test by saving and then deleting their NAND game save and then the one in emunand that got copied and try again. could be corrupted copy I guess.
@Cyan does USBLGX just use NEEK for a wii disc title behind the scenes, because the only options I have in loader settings is off, partial, full?

I am using priiloader .8 ... but when I tried to run the update to .8.1 it froze AFTER the supposed update but didn't really update... I'll just leave it. Still have to copy the forwarder at this point. @Clutz450 , do I just copy the forwarder to the root of my SD?

 

[GreyWolf]

@ToneL GX doesn't support booting straight to NEEK for disc-based titles. You have to launch the NEEK environment and start the game from the system menu. You can use the save emunand feature to redirect disc saves to HDD but it uses the cIOS not NEEK. I know OverJoy was working on booting straight to disc images but it's not working yet.

Partial = saves on HDD, settings from NAND. Full = everything on HDD.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

@ngs428 Try deleting the neek config bin in the /sneek/ folder and restart NEEK. Blue flashing is a crash, I believe. I had the same problem and deleting that file reset everything. It WILL take a long time the first boot into NEEK.

 

[Clutz450]

I am using priiloader .8 ... but when I tried to run the update to .8.1 it froze AFTER the supposed update but didn't really update... I'll just leave it. Still have to copy the forwarder at this point. @Clutz450 , do I just copy the forwarder to the root of my SD?

PriiLoader froze on me the first time I tried to update and the second time I ran it froze again but this time it actually updated. So I would say just try again.

As for the forwarder I believe you can put the forwarder dol anywhere but the SD card root probably would be best. Then you have to choose install file and install the forwarder dol file. Then choose the option to boot installed file. Once the file is installed I don't think you need the dol file on your sd card anymore so you can delete it.

 

[Cyan]

@ngs428:
I guess your issue is because your FAT32 partition is not the first on the drive.

 

[ngs428]

@ngs428:
I guess your issue is because your FAT32 partition is not the first on the drive.

I was hoping this would not be the case. Guess I will have to spend a few hours cutting, formatting and pasting.

Will there be any issues if the Wii games are on USB2.

 

[Cyan]

no issue at all for wii games.
Wii games can also be on FAT32, you don't need NTFS.

I know EmuNAND + d2x cIOS is working with multiple partition, but I wasn't sure about neek/neek2o.
Maybe (and I only tell maybe, not sure), you can convert the NTFS partition to extended+Logical, instead or primary.
neek might load the "first primary" which will be the second physical partition on your drive now.

I don't know if neek is checking the partition format, or just the primary type.
Nintendont is loading the "first Primary FAT32" and neek is probably loading the "first partition" or the "first primary".

I thought USBLoaderGX had a check for the partition format and neek and that it would warn you that your partition wasn't the first primary.
I'll have to verify the functions used for that check.
or maybe you don't have r1260 ?

 

[ngs428]

no issue at all for wii games.
Wii games can also be on FAT32, you don't need NTFS.

I know EmuNAND + d2x cIOS is working with multiple partition, but I wasn't sure about neek/neek2o.
Maybe (and I only tell maybe, not sure), you can convert the NTFS partition to extended+Logical, instead or primary.
neek might load the "first primary" which will be the second physical partition on your drive now.

I don't know if neek is checking the partition format, or just the primary type.
Nintendont is loading the "first Primary FAT32" and neek is probably loading the "first partition" or the "first primary".

I thought USBLoaderGX had a check for the partition format and neek and that it would warn you that your partition wasn't the first primary.
I'll have to verify the functions used for that check.
or maybe you don't have r1260 ?

I am using r1260

 

[Clutz450]

I was hoping this would not be the case. Guess I will have to spend a few hours cutting, formatting and pasting.

Will there be any issues if the Wii games are on USB2.

Not sure how much of a pain in the ass this would be for you but I would recommend backup up your games and formatting your entire drive to FAT32 with 32k clusters (64k clusters if greater than 2TB) and then copying all your games back over. If your drive is over 2TB I would copy over the GameCube games first then the Wii games. I don't know how true this is but I think I remember reading somewhere that nintendont may have problems reading GameCube games that are beyond the 2TB mark. I've never tested this but I still made sure my games were first on the drive just in case. That's how I use my drive to play Wiiware/VC, Wii and GameCube games and haven't had any issues.

 

[ca032769]

Did I read somewhere that USB Loader GX will read both Wii USB Ports at the same time? I have an original Wii and only really used Configurable USB Loader up until now. I haven't been able to find any specific tutorials on making this happen, just comments on people having issues trying to make it work that seem a bit dated.

I use a WD 4TB Mybook (formatted FAT32, 32k, Active & Primary) and the problem has been while all my Wii games work it won't load any of my GameCube games through Nintendont. Swapping the 4TB out for any of my flash drives with GameCubes on it works fine, just not off the large 4TB HDD. So my plan would be to use USB Loader GX with my 4TB WD for Wii games on one port and a second 2TB HD on the other port for Gamecume & VC/Wiiware titles. Is this possible in USB Loader GX?

@Clutz450 - I'm also going to try your method mentioned above and see if it works.

 

[Clutz450]

So my plan would be to use USB Loader GX with my 4TB WD for Wii games on one port and a second 2TB HD on the other port for Gamecume & VC/Wiiware titles. Is this possible in USB Loader GX?

I have a 4TB WD MyBook also. I originally thought the same thing as you and tried to do 2 drives connected at the same time and it was just too confusing for me to figure out and get working right. I thought the drives had to be formatted to 32k cluster size but no matter what I did I couldn't get my 4TB drive to do anything less than 64k. So I formatted the whole thing to FAT32 with 64k clusters and put everything onto one drive and everything works great for me.

 

[ngs428]

Not sure how much of a pain in the ass this would be for you but I would recommend backup up your games and formatting your entire drive to FAT32 with 32k clusters (64k clusters if greater than 2TB) and then copying all your games back over. If your drive is over 2TB I would copy over the GameCube games first then the Wii games. I don't know how true this is but I think I remember reading somewhere that nintendont may have problems reading GameCube games that are beyond the 2TB mark. I've never tested this but I still made sure my games were first on the drive just in case. That's how I use my drive to play Wiiware/VC, Wii and GameCube games and haven't had any issues.

That could certainly be an option. I have everything backed up already. I only have a 300GB Hard drive.

I formatted to NTFS for the Wii games that were over the file size limit for Fat32. That was the only reason. I would need to split the game if I were on Fat32 correct...

 

[Clutz450]

I formatted to NTFS for the Wii games that were over the file size limit for Fat32. That was the only reason. I would need to split the game if I were on Fat32 correct...

Yes. FAT32 you would need to split the games that are over 4 gigs. But use Wii Backup Manager to transfer the games over and it will automatically split the games for you.

 

[ngs428]

Yes. FAT32 you would need to split the games that are over 4 gigs. But use Wii Backup Manager to transfer the games over and it will automatically split the games for you.

I will give that a shot. 1 partition sounds good at this point!

Did you have to set the partition as "active"? I see some posts referring to that..

 

[Clutz450]

I will give that a shot. 1 partition sounds good at this point!

Did you have to set the partition as "active"? I see some posts referring to that..

Honestly I don't think it makes a difference but every guide I've seen has said to set it as active so I always did myself. In case you need a guide, here is a link to the one I used which helped to get my hard drive formated properly (http://www.wiihacks.com/showthread.php?t=96770). In that guide it has you install EaseUS Partition Master which is a really good free program. But like most free programs it does try to install things you don't need or want. So take your time and read through each page of the installation and make sure to uncheck all the boxes for things you don't want. Also note that that guide says to use 32k but 64k clusters works as well and has to be used for drives bigger than 2TB. If you need any other help just let me know.

 

[sonictopfan]

Not sure how much of a pain in the ass this would be for you but I would recommend backup up your games and formatting your entire drive to FAT32 with 32k clusters (64k clusters if greater than 2TB) and then copying all your games back over. If your drive is over 2TB I would copy over the GameCube games first then the Wii games. I don't know how true this is but I think I remember reading somewhere that nintendont may have problems reading GameCube games that are beyond the 2TB mark. I've never tested this but I still made sure my games were first on the drive just in case. That's how I use my drive to play Wiiware/VC, Wii and GameCube games and haven't had any issues.

This, I was just about to recommend the same, I was once a fool using WBFS format "didn't know Fat32 support was already implemented at the time, following a really old guide when attempting doing this" but then a wise member here made a mock comment about me that really set my head strait, and I'm really grateful to her for opening my eyes.

So yeah, go for Fat32 with 32KB, it'll save you a lot of headache, use Wii Backup Manager to do the formatting and to transfer your games, you're gonna thank us later!

 

[ngs428]

Honestly I don't think it makes a difference but every guide I've seen has said to set it as active so I always did myself. In case you need a guide, here is a link to the one I used which helped to get my hard drive formated properly (http://www.wiihacks.com/showthread.php?t=96770). In that guide it has you install EaseUS Partition Master which is a really good free program. But like most free programs it does try to install things you don't need or want. So take your time and read through each page of the installation and make sure to uncheck all the boxes for things you don't want. Also note that that guide says to use 32k but 64k clusters works as well and has to be used for drives bigger than 2TB. If you need any other help just let me know.

That is a really good guide you posted. I formatted my hard drive per the guide and am transferring the Wii games over via Wii Backup Manager right now. Also copying over the NAND, Game (GameCube Games) and SNEEK folders.

I don't seem to be missing anything at this point. Once everything is copied over I can test. One more time..... Please oh please work.