Some hard drives are better than the others

Continue my journey of experimenting with WiiFlow on WiiU (vWii side): I found that while my 80Gb works great everytime, my 1Tb (drive U) harddisk has problem being recognized by my WiiU.  I don't know if the problem is my that specific harddisk or not.  More test in progress.

DOK220U3P, a US$30 hard drive dock that works

There's nothing particularly awesome about this Iview 2.5in / 3.5in SATA to USB 3.0 Hard Drive Docking Station, Model: DOK220U3P, besides the fact that it simply works.  I hooked it up to my Dell XPS 8700, and the copy of 250Gb of files take 30 minutes or so, a definitely respectable speed.  If the USB 3.0 dock works fine for another one week, then may be I'll just get another one.

It is because it's USB3, or because it's a portable harddisk?

I started to found myself spending more time to test various configuration of harddisk, disk partition, and other setup with WiiFlow on WiiU, then actually playing games on it.  Ironic.

By the way, a side note: I just realized that my Dell XPS has serious problem recognizing or maintaining connection with USB2 harddisks, but seems to have no problem with USB3 harddisk what so ever.  Very strange.

So I tried using various USB2 portable 2.5 inch harddisk, including a 320GB USB2 harddisk, a 1Tb USB3 hard disk, and all of them failed.  On the other hand, the USB2 3.5 inch harddisk dock that I have works fine with WiiFlow.  So I guess I'll just have to stick with the non-portable harddisk then.

To be fair, the was ONE time that WiiFlow recognized and showed up the right game list, but obviously it's not consistent enough for me to consider using it daily.

STill can't move New Super Mario Bros Wii save file around

I had problem moving New Super Mario Bros Wii save file around.  At first I thought it was because I was using a PAL version of the game, but then I tried the NTSC version, and it still fail.  So I am pretty much give up now.

Rip and rip agin

I was trying to play Twilight Princess out of the harddisk I used with USBLoader since the beginning.  But now that with the WiiU, the harddisk doesn't work anymore.  After slight fustration, eventually I found out why: the old seemed to be slight corrupted.  I knew it because I tried a new rip on a newer harddisk, and the game worked fine.  Guess maybe it's time to me to re-rip a lot of those old games.

WiiFlow and the Last Story

I had problem running the Last Story with WiiFlow.  So I tried changing the following 2 settings:

• Change IOS to 251
• Patch country strings to On

And then the game worked.  I actually don't know which setting, or maybe both, solved the problem.  But work cares!  All the know is that it works now.

Tried and tried GameCube, but not work ...

I kept try and try getting GameCube games, but none of what I tried work.

I tried putting the GameCube iso on SD card, on FAT32  harddisk partition, on eFAT32, on NTFS ... all failed.

I tired using DIOS MIOS, tried DEvolution ... and they failed.

When I said failed, I mean I saw the selection screen in WiiFlow, but once launched, I got blank screen and that's all.

So at the end I decided that I wasted enough time, and it's time to just stop and move on.

Having fun with Wii games is great enough for now.

Continue to play Wii games on WiiU with WiiFlow

Yesterday I set up my Wii U to be able to run WiiFlow, and I was able to play games I previous prepared for use with  USBLoader GX.  It worked very well, but then I realized a few problems:

• I let USBLoader GX formated the harddisk, and that harddisk cannot be recognized by Windows OS.  Thus, I can't backup or copy over games easily.
• Ripping disc using Wii is too slow.  And Wii U seems to NOT able to rip disc at all.

So I checked around and found that I can use Wii Backup Manager to rip my disc into wbfs files.  But how do I use them?

Turns out it's pretty simple:

• Format your harddisk with NTFS format (I did it on Windows 8.1)
• Create a folder called "wbfs"
• Put all the folder ripped by Wii Backup Mangers into the wbfs.

The result will be like this.

In fact, I even tried formatting the 80Gb harddisk in FAT32, and it didn't work at all.  Also I need to make sure I plug the USB cable to the LEFT of the 2 USB part at the back of my Wii U.

Since the covers are all downloaded on the SD card that has WiiFlow in it, it's very important to have big enough SD card to store all the content.  In fact, I encountered problem last night with my 128Mb SD card when I tried to get all the cover images on it.

And turns out my 4Gb SDHC card worked pretty well with WiiFlow.

Another tidbit:  after you added new games to your hard disk, remember to refresh the cache in WiiFlow by:

• Use WiiMote to point to the home icon at lower right of the screen
• Click [Reload Cache] button.  It's in the middle of the left column.

So far I have one problem (but a big one): can't copy New Super Mario Bros Wii save from my Wii to Wii U.  Tried and tried and still failed, and eventually I am giving up.

Hacking Wii U to play Wii backup games

I came across this site that talks about running HomeBrew Channel on the virtual Wii on Wii U.  Then this next thing came to my mind: can I run USBLoader on the virtuall Wii on Wii U?

Then I found this instruction.

I followed it, and found that while most of steps are correct, there are a few that needs to be clarified:

• I used the Super Smash Bros. Brawl hack.  (I don't have this game, but I borrowed it from a friend.)  I found that indeed I need to DELETE the 3 sample stages first, and then reboot, restart the game, and then INSERT the SD card with the heck.  And once I select Stage Builder, boom, it went into Homebrew installer mode.  Sweet.
• I found that some tools, like App Manager, only works with old version of Wiimote (without Wiimote Plus feature integrated).  Thank goodness I have one of those so that I can move on.
• The step "In “Bluedump” hit “A” on “System Titles” Select “IOS56″, use the dpad to select “Backup to wad file” Press “1″ and it will dump “IOS56″ to the SD card." was a bit confusing.  The actual step should be:
• Launch Bluedump in AppManager
• Hit A on System Titles
• use D pad to move down to IOS56
• Press (1) and then use D pad right to select "Backup to WAD", and then press (A)
• A sequence of task will be executed,  after 10 to 15 lines of text flyby, it should be success at the end.
• Need to use WiiFlow instead of USBLoader GX.  I tried USBLoader GX and the screen size was messed up.  WiiFlow doesn't have that problem.
• If I left the USB Harddisk on, then when WiiU boot up, it will yep about the harddisk not in the right format.  I need to power of my harddisk and power it on only after I am on the Wii screen.
• I found out that I have to use the back left side USB plug of my WiiU in order to make my harddisk with Wii games work.  On my Wii, on the other hand, it works when I plug to the right side at the back.
• I was NOT able to rip disk to harddisk from WiiU.  I tend to think that it's more of the problem of the WiiU NOT able to read my DVDR discs.  Maybe I need to use my Wii to rip to harddisk instead.
• I tried New Super Mario Bros Wii and found that Ocarina (cheat code) only works if I turn on Hook Type VBI.
• Kirby 20th Anniversary works with old console modes.  YEAH!
• There are times when WiiFlow not able to loaded, and sort of hang up the whole machine.  I have to unplug to power to reboot.