Wii Soft mod Questions

[grifterb]

First of all, hello everyone. I am a new wii owner and I have been asking the same questions all over the web for weeks, and couldn't get proper answers. I see that you guys and gals are pretty good with soft-mod help, so If you don't mind I have several questions, and depending on your answers I'm planning to ask more on this topic. Here I go:

I believe that you need to know that I own a backwards compatible (vertical, white) wii, I do not know which version it is (I'll be able to check in 4-5 days when I get home).

1. I want to mod this thing, but I guess I need two pieces of basic equipment, a 2gb sd card and a hdd. The question is, I already have a seagate hdd (it is not in fat32 format), that I've been using to store anime/movie/games. I know that seagate has the highest compatibility with wii, but does the hdd I'm going to use need to be in fat32 format? More importantly does it have to be formatted in a special way, which will turn it into an hdd that is dedicated to wii alone?

I also would like to add that using hdd's in long term gaming causes some heating problems. After hooking that thing up for 5-6 strait hours, doesn't it cause any problems? If it does, would you suggest me to get ausb flash, with 32gb (more or less) to hook it up and use my hdd as a hub for storing games in the long term? Would it cause any problems (in speed or loading times maybe).

2. There are wii games in many formats iso, wbsf, scrubbed... I really don't know which ones to use, but I prefer my game to be not ripped of any content and I'd like to play my wii games from a usb device. Which ones are the way to go?

3. I alsou would like to play gamecube games, I already bought a third party memory card (chinese knock-off, 128mb) . I heard unlike ps2 that they don't cause any problems. Anyway, I also need a wireless gamecube controller, but wavebirds are impossible to find, and I didn't read anything good about 3rd party controllers. So I'll go with the original gamecube controller plus an extension cord (if I can find one), do you have a better suggestion?

4. Should I play gamecubegames from dvds? or play them from the usb devices? Are there compatibility issues? I heard that they made a virtual gamecubememory card, does it work properly, or should I use my 3rd party memory card?

5. Do I have to use any particular brand or model of sd card?

6. I know that we have tons of tutorials around here, and I appreciate them. However, like I said, I'm more comfortable with a video tutorial since I can see the whole process with my own eyes and I will not have to deal with the terminology. I already found a few videos that could help me out, I could ask you to confirm them for me, however I don't know how things go around here. Would it be okay if I would share a youtube video, or if you guys would suggest me one?

7. By the way, is there anything I should be extra careful about? For instance I read that I need to remove all my gamecube hardware from the wii before the soft mod process. Do I also need to block the internet connection as I did with my ps3?

8. I have a couple of original games, can I play them before and after my softmod process and not screw up anything?

I know that this is a long list of questions, but I would really appreciate if you could help me out with them. Like I said, more wiil be coming soon.

Thank you.

[Zorlon]

1. for gamecube compat not only does the drive require Fat 32 but the clustor size must be 32 also, something that new versions of Windows can't do that on it's own so you require 3rd party software to do that, for Wii software though you have the option of using standard NTFS or WBFS, in general FAT32 32 cluster will cover you for Wii and GC discs aswell as virtual Nand for Wii ware, Virtual console games and it also lets you use emulators, I use a WD 2 TB drives and have had the thing running for very long periods of time, in-fact the ones in my PC (exact same drives) I have had torrents running on them for months at a time without resetting, there don't get that hot though to start with

2. scrubbing removes junk data that is not part of the game wbfs format is much the same system update info is generally removed but if you mod it correctly you block updates anyway, you do not want to update the wii firmware officially it will break the soft mod, in general none of this removes in-game data so nothing is ripped from the games

3. 3rd party GC memcards are ok in general, there are some that will either not last or just do not work with all games but that is not a common issue

4. Not all Wii hardware can even read DVD-R or DVD+R (only the first couple of Wii's released could) also the drives that can read those at a slower rate to original GC discs so most games lag ran direct from a DVD-R or DVD+R in the drive, best method is from HDD and this is the main reason to go with Fat32 with 32 clusters

5. Nope you just need a standard 2GB card (HD cards are best used after modding if you feel the need for more space but as you can run everything from usb once it is modded I do not see the need)

6. Avoid every tutorial and just use ModMii instead that is self guiding with video's and is kept up to date, this will save lots of messing up due to out of date information, for GC I will guide you through that seperate from the main modding, it's not hard but it is not included with ModMii either also with ModMii it is up to you what USBloader you use, different users have different fav's mine is USBLoaderGX though, but with most of those you need a beta version for GC compat

7. Nothing should be plugged into the Wii (a GC pad can be pluged in when required but not before, can be used while you backup the nand) and avoid tutorial guides they are out of date and some cios will be missing making some things just not work. just do what I said in 6.

You can go online before and after the mod you can even officially buy & download from the Wii Shop if you wished to do so or play Mario Kart Online I would go as far as to recommend you do have the internet set up before you mod, just don't update the system. (I wouldn't worry if it's not set up though, it's not a requirement and can be et up after modding that will have certain things blocked like updates)

8. Yes you can play those before and after modding, though I just install my originals on HDD also, saves my discs from damage and the drive from damage

Yeah that's a canny list and I kind of expect more to come

P.S. I have guided plenty through GC loading from HDD even though that is a reasonably new method though it is not without problems, there are a few very few that is that stream audio in a certain way that is yet to be supported, the only game of those I was gutted about was Star Fox Adventures for the GameCube as it has no voices or sub titles therefore not really playable to me, most games have perfect sound through the entire game though