I’ve been running Homebrew on my Wii for quite some time and recently stumbled upon the ability to play backed up games from a USB hard drive. There’s several advantages to this, one is I don’t have to worry about changing DVDs anytime I want to play a game in addition to not having to carry them around, and having the games loaded from a USB hard drive should increase my load time.
I needed to keep a log of all the steps I had to take in order to get this functionality working, so I figured I might as well be helpful and provide a list of the steps needed to do so.
The only thing I ask is that you don’t follow these methods to pirate games. It’s wrong and it cheats developers out of money they deserve. Homebrew is there to help enhance the functionality of the system, not for free games. So please use it wisely and don’t abuse the system. It’s all on the honor system here folks.
Prerequisites:
- External USB Hard Drive
- Homebrew Channel already installed (See Twilight Hack if you have system 3.4 or less, or Bannerbomb if you have 4.0 for Homebrew installation instructions)
Step 1 – Install cIOS38 (if you don’t already have cIOS38 installed, otherwise skip to Step 2)
- Download cIOS38_rev14 (you can find it here)
- Extract and rename “cIOS38_rev14-Installer” to “boot.dol”.
- Create a folder named “cIOS38_rev14″ under the /apps directory on your SD card and copy the extracted “boot.dol” file to that folder.
- If this doesn’t work and the installation fails, you need to download the Trucha Bug Restorer for your system. Try that and attempt to install cIOS38 again. Please note that this step may brick your Wii! I highly recommend you go ahead and install BootMii in boot2 and back up your NAND before attempting this portion. Doing so will allow you to recover should anything go wrong, otherwise you are continuing at your own risk!
Step 2 – Install a USB Loader
There’s actually several options available here as far as USB loaders are concerned. Just take a look at the wide range of loaders and pick one that has the features you like.
- Download your favored USB Loader.
- Follow any included instructions, otherwise you may only need to copy the extracted folder into your /apps directory on your SD card.
Step 3 – Format Your Hard Drive
You will probably need to partition the drive as the following download will only work with raw, unformatted partitions and not NTFS, FAT32, etc. I highly recommend GParted. It’s also a good idea to partition if you want to use any extra space on this hard drive for other things than your Wii, or if you want to move backed up iso files to your computer.
- If you want to partition your hard drive, you may want to try and download a partition manager like GParted. Otherwise you can use the whole hard drive.
- If you decided to use GParted, simply partition the hard drive and leave the partition you want to use as “unformatted” and continue on to Step 4. If you want to use the Windows method, read below:
- Since the hard drive is already likely formatted, you’ll want to format it as “unformatted”.
- Once you load up the hard drive in USB Loader, it should format it correctly.
Step 4 – Install & Run Games
The following steps may differ depending on which USB loader you installed (I’m using CFG USB Loader).
- Launch the homebrew channel and your recently installed USB Loader.
- Select “USB Mass Storage Device”.
- Insert any game disc, and press “+” to install it. This may take some time depending on the size of the game.
- Repeat last step for each and every game you want to install.
- You’re now ready to play your backed up games! Just select your game, and press “A” to begin.
Some of the USB Loaders will automatically download game covers, and others don’t. If you downloaded one that doesn’t you can find them here. It’s only 40mb to download 450+ covers, so you might want to do it anyway just in case.
If you have any issues with the above steps, please be sure that you remove any and all GameCube memory cards. It seems some Homebrew stuff has issues with the memory cards in place when you’re trying to install.
I tried to be as detailed as possible and cover as many angles as I could, but I’m bound to have missed a thing or two. If you are attempting to follow this guide and are running into some issues, or I seem to be missing a vital step, leave a comment and I’ll try to address it as best as I can.
As a bonus, here’s what it all looks like using the loader I tried. Please note that the above steps will not create a USB Loader channel in your main menu, but will need to be accessed through the Homebrew Channel. If you’re interested in doing so, you can follow this guide here which outlines the steps to create a USB Loader Forwarder Channel and creating channels from games installed onto your USB hard drive.
This is only a small piece of the pie of what Homebrew offers. There’s tons of applications and utilities available, not to mention the ability to play DVDs. You can find more details and information on everything over at WiiBrew.org.
This is totally cool. Trust me I have seen it! Jason lets box tonight! without the CD
Thank you, Jason.
Thanks you for your post. I would like to know how to copy game from one hard drive to another? please help thanks again
WBFS manager v3 has a built in drive to drive copy feature for raw partitions.
hey if i use gparted , and i got something on my hdd, will it delete anything after formatting it?
@needhelp Yes, anytime you format a hdd you remove any information on the disc, so you’ll need a backup. GParted does allow you to adjust the size of your partitions so that you can free up some space to create a new partition, but it’s always good to back up your data just to be safe.
In theory, can i use ANY USB hard drive, as long as it is formatted/set up using the steps you posted?
For the most part, yes. There’s a HD compatibility list here if you want to look for your hard drive.
I had a friend do all of this to my WII and he let me barrow one of his external hard drives until I could get my own, I finally got a 1 TB hard drive and had him do a direct copy of his but it was only a 60 GB and he had to partition my hard drive, How can I delete the partition and have full use of the 1 TB without deleting what games I have I really dont want to download all those games again
Hi. I’ve got a Western Digital Essential Edt. external harddrive, and I’m trying to partition it into 2 partitions: 1 for wii games and 1 for PS2 games.
I’ve successfully formatted 1 partition into FAT32 and loaded some PS2 games onto it without any problems, they play perfectly.
I tried to use WBFS manager to format the other partition into the correct file system, but since it was unformatted it didn’t have a drive letter, so I couldn’t select the unformatted part of the harddrive. So I used Windows to first format it into NTFS file system, and after that I formated it into WBFS file system with the WBFS manager. So far so good. But when I plug the harddrive into the Wii, my USB loader (I’m using USB loader GX) won’t detect the harddrive.
What is wrong?
@Mithie Newer versions of USB Loader now support FAT32 as long as you use Hermes cIOS 222/223 which this tutorial unfortunately does not cover. I haven’t tested it myself since I’m still using cIOS 249 but you could try installing 222 and using a FAT32 partition to see if that works.
Since WBFS manager didn’t work, try to set your desired Wii partition to a raw, unformatted partition and pulling it up in USB Loader GX to see if it will let you format that partition.
Thank you, it probably would’ve worked, but turns out the PS2 games didn’t run as well as they should have from the hard drive, so I have to burn them on DVD’s anyway.
I’ll just format the whole hard drive into a wbfs drive, I know for sure that it works with only 1 partition :)
I am using a Western Digital 1tb formated by the hacked usbloadergx. All games load just fine and are stored on the Western Digital. I am able to load and play as long as the Western Digital stayed plugged into USB 2 of the wii. However I want to be able to make DVD-r copies also from this drive. I need precise help. I am using vista 64. I have tried using the WBFS manager. I get errors when plugging up WD to the computer and loading the Western Digital. However I formatted a PNY 8gb and WBFS manager shows now with no errors. However there are no games on this drive and it stack dumps when loading games from the Wii. Going insane in the membrane!!!
Step 1. install WBFS manager 2.5 onto your pc
Step 2. plug a PNY 8gb Flash and open WBFS manager on pc
Step 3. Format PNY 8gb Flash using WBFS manager find the right drive (ex. I:)
Step 4. Plug PNY 8gb Flash into bottom USB slot of wii
Step 5. Open USB LOADER GX from homebrew
Step 6. Insert game into wii and load *this takes a while*
Step 7. Plug PNY 8gb Flash into pc and open up WBFS manager load from correct drive (ex. I:)
Step 8. Extract ISO
Step 9. Patch iso using IOS patcher and set it to your IOS mine is 249.
Step 10. Insert blank disk open up Image Burn and find the iso you patched (it will look the same as if nothing happend but it’s patched – only the new mario and a few games will be different)
Step 11. Open neo gamma 7 insert burn disc and enjoy.
is there any chance u got a solution for a 4.2E ?
HELP!!!
I have a 1tb western digital hard drive with 500 Wii Games on it. All the games work fine through the USB loader. I just purchased a 2tb western digital drive and copied all the games from the 1tb to the 2tb drive using WBFS manager. NOw when i try to play a game off the 2tb drive i click on the game and the game will not load it just takes me back to the wii main menu screen. The USB loader says that the new drive has 500 games and 2tb total space. ANY IDEAS??????? Thanks
@rob A lot of the larger drives aren’t tested and may not work. Check to see if your HD is listed here first.
Jason,
My 2tb is on the list. it’s the 2tb Western Digital Essential. Here is a weird thing I noticed. I just put an original Wii disc in the Wii and copied it to the hard drive. When I click on the image of that new game- the game works fine but the games I copied from my 1tb drive do not load. When I copied the games from the 1tb drive to the 2tb drive I used the CLONE command in the WBFS manager. I wondering if I should have used the COPY command instead being that the new drive was bigger than the original? Any ideas or suggestions? Should I format the 2tb drive again and try copying all the games instead of cloning?
Thanks
I have a question – according to the HD compatibility list if you format a 2tb drive in FAT32 format instead of using the WBFS Manager then you will not have the 500 game limit. Has anyone tried this? Also, if I don’t use the WBFS Manager- do I just copy games from 1 drive to another just using windows copy and paste feature?
Thanks
Reading up on the cloning, it appears that there may be an issue with cloning? You may want to try the “Add to Drive” option. I know I’ve used it in the past with some success. I don’t remember if you need to extract the ISO first or not, but try that and let me know if it works.
Fixed my USB Loader GX loading issue on my 1.5TB WD drive that was listed as “compatible”. Here’s what happened and my fix.
I got a new WD HD and formatted it as 1 big (1.5TB) WBFS partition. Tested the drive by loading a few original games to the hard drive via USB Loader GX from the Wii. Everything worked so I moved all my games from my old hard drive to the new one by using WBFS Manager. Once it finished, I tested the games that were moved from my old drive and none of them work! When I click on the game (on USB Loader GX) to play it, it just takes me back to the Wii main menu screen. The games that originally (manually) loaded from USB Loader GX, played with no issues.
Here’s what I found out:
Partition any hard drive over 1TB into multiple partitions. Don’t go beyond 999GB per partition since:
1) You not be able to play your games if you move them over from another hard drive. My one big 1.5TB partition did not work and once I reformatted back to NTFS (took forever) and did 3 new partitions…everything worked. I made a 999GB WBFS, 451GB WBFS, and 10GB NTFS partition for art work and Wii emulators. This 10GB drive will also be used as a storage/backup for my SD card for disaster recovery.
2) There is currently a 500 game limit on WBFS Manager. Some people say 500 games will be around 1TB, so partitioning your drive under 1 TB makes sense. If you do have 500 games and STILL have room, you can use your remaining this space by manually loading games via the USB Loader (via the Wii). If you want to maximize your storage space and still be under the 500 limit, try rearranging your big (large GB) games to your big partition.
3) I would use the copy function instead of clone feature on WBFS Manager since you should test the process on a few games instead of moving all your games at once. Select a few games from the host drive (pick the games from the top of the WBFS list), copy them to your new drive, and THEN test the games on your Wii to see if they work before you move all of them with one big job!!! Why move all the games at the beginning if your test games don’t work in the first place? If your sample does work, select the remaining games and use the copy function.
Hope these tips help out.
I have a terrible delimea that really needs some help.
I use my external hard drive for usb loader so I can play games that i have. All my discs are unreadable already but i have them on the drive.
I had turned off my ocarina on the usb loader gx and tried playing a game, but nothing but black (this is normal for me so I just restart). but this time i go to usb loader it gives me:
“No WBFS or FAT/NTFS partition found
you need to select or format a partition
(Select) (Format)
(Return)”
I select (select):
“partition 1: 400.76 gb
partition 2: cant be formated
partition 3: cant be formated
partition 4: cant be formated ”
I select partition 1, and gives me a black screen with white letters saying “expection” at top and “reloading in 5 seconds…” then im taken to the wii menu.
someone please help
Out of curiosity, why are all of your discs unreadable?
Hi, cool instructions, i have read a few hundred times and think i am ready to go for it. I have homebrew used V1 bannerbomb as i am on version 3.2 so have to hit the home button to access bootmii, will this guide be ok with my set up. Also Q- i have followed the link cIOS38_rev14 and it is not available for DL just takes to another page. I can get a more up to date one. will this still work with this tutorial, i have google this installer aswell and keep going round in circles- have you got a reliable link please? thanks
Not sure why rev 14 is no longer available, but you could try using the latest version (cIOS38_rev19). I haven’t tested this version as I’m still running rev14, so doing so would be at your own risk. I assume the other steps would be the same.
Hi, thanks, i have just done a NAND so even if i totally screw it up i can do a restore? However, have not got a clue how fool proof this is! Thanks for the advise, zo
Yes. As long as you have BootMii and a saved backup you can restore. I’ve done it several times as I’ve accidentally bricked my system.
does your external hd need to have a wall plug in and can you format any hd into Fat32
No, most USB hdds pull power from USB, and yes.