Can a hard drive be to slow for wii?

[ronnie5]

I have an old pc that I have taken the hard drive out of, bought an enclosure formatted it to WBFS with WBFS manager 3.0 and found that transferring games takes 20mins per 1gb which seems to be slow but the problem starts when I plug it into the wii, usb loader gx waits for the hdd and hangs at 11secs.
I have been messing around with my bosses wii and his hdd works fine on my wii and so does a usb stick so is my hdd too slow its a seagate barracuda 7200.7 80gb 3.5" mains powered.
Could I format it to FAT32 and use isos would that make any difference?

[Keithuk]

A slow computer with not much memory will make WBFS Manager add games to a drive very slowly. I gave my friend 8 games to add to his drive and it took all night on his 750Mhz 256mb memory. Mine takes about 1 minute per game to load, 3.8Mhz 4GB memory.

With a FAT32 drive you just add the iso after you rename the file with the game ID plus the game name, so I'm told so with would be quicker.

[happy_highlander]

I have an old pc that I have taken the hard drive out of, bought an enclosure formatted it to WBFS with WBFS manager 3.0 and found that transferring games takes 20mins per 1gb which seems to be slow but the problem starts when I plug it into the wii, usb loader gx waits for the hdd and hangs at 11secs.
I have been messing around with my bosses wii and his hdd works fine on my wii and so does a usb stick so is my hdd too slow its a seagate barracuda 7200.7 80gb 3.5" mains powered.
Could I format it to FAT32 and use isos would that make any difference?

you have answered your own question in the hdd description..It is very unlikely that 7200rpm hdd is too slow but you could try this after you have formatted it to fat32 to test read write speed Digital Kaos - Downloads - h2testw_1.4 this is usually used on flash drives to test for errors but will work on hdd, however I do think that the problem you are having is with the format..As you have probably found out wbfs drives cannot be checked for errors on pc as no software can read them. My advice would be to convert to fat32 with 32kb clusters using EaseUS Partition Master Home Edition - Download.com then use wiibackup manager to transfer the games from pc to fat32 drive

[Keithuk]

You could check the drive for errors if the formatted it NTFS the do a full scandisk then you have to do a WBFS format to add the games again.

[ronnie5]

A slow computer with not much memory will make WBFS Manager add games to a drive very slowly. I gave my friend 8 games to add to his drive and it took all night on his 750Mhz 256mb memory. Mine takes about 1 minute per game to load, 3.8Mhz 4GB memory.

With a FAT32 drive you just add the iso after you rename the file with the game ID plus the game name, so I'm told so with would be quicker.

Im running window 7 2.30 GHz 3gb ram so its not the pc as I can transfer files quicker using wbfs manager onto another hdd or usb stick im statrting to think my hdd has had it???
Tried scandisk everything seems ok.

[ronnie5]

you have answered your own question in the hdd description..It is very unlikely that 7200rpm hdd is too slow but you could try this after you have formatted it to fat32 to test read write speed Digital Kaos - Downloads - h2testw_1.4 this is usually used on flash drives to test for errors but will work on hdd, however I do think that the problem you are having is with the format..As you have probably found out wbfs drives cannot be checked for errors on pc as no software can read them. My advice would be to convert to fat32 with 32kb clusters using EaseUS Partition Master Home Edition - Download.com then use wiibackup manager to transfer the games from pc to fat32 drive

I have done the above and everything seems fine but when transfering files using wiibackup manager I notice it transfers at around 30-48mbps and 5 seconds later I get 1mbps transfer rate and that where it stays, also the transfer wont finish it sticks at 99.99% I think the hdd could be on its way out?? even though its always been fine on the old pc.
I am now trying a full FAT32 format not a quick one so will see how that goes?

EDIT: I have given up already with the full format as I really dont have 20 hours 40mins I have already wasted an easy 24hrs messing around with this drive!

[ronnie5]

Im guessing this hdd is usb 1.1? when I transfer music I get a transfer rate of 1mbps or less. The hdd enclosure says usb 2.0 so I assume it converts the drive to usb 2.0? which I dont think is happening??

[happy_highlander]

It does sound as though there is something very wrong with the hdd. I have a 4500 rpm 80 gb in an enclosure and there is no difference in transfer speed to the purpose built external hdd I have. It should only take 2 to 3 mins to transfer a game from iso to wbfs whether it be to a wbfs drive or a fat 32 drive

[ronnie5]

It does sound as though there is something very wrong with the hdd. I have a 4500 rpm 80 gb in an enclosure and there is no difference in transfer speed to the purpose built external hdd I have. It should only take 2 to 3 mins to transfer a game from iso to wbfs whether it be to a wbfs drive or a fat 32 drive

I think your right mate when I was transferring music to the hdd the files would start at 100mbps then drop to 10mbps then lower so I guess its tired! I spose it did work hard for 5 years in the old pc! even though is still works ok in the pc!
I can get 80gb internals for less than a 10er so best buy one of those!

[Keithuk]

I can get 80gb internals for less than a 10er so best buy one of those!

You still need to check that the drive you're thinking of getting is still compatible as some aren't.

Well an 80GB won't hold that much my 120GB only held 65 games. The thing is you'll find is that you find more games and you run out of space and think I should have bought a bigger drive in the first place. Its up to you but cut your losses and get a compatible 500GB before you start.

[ronnie5]

You still need to check that the drive you're thinking of getting is still compatible as some aren't.

Well an 80GB won't hold that much my 120GB only held 65 games. The thing is you'll find is that you find more games and you run out of space and think I should have bought a bigger drive in the first place. Its up to you but cut your losses and get a compatible 500GB before you start.

Yeah I know what your saying but we dont have 2 pence to scratch our ars* with!!! so need to go for the cheaper option! Im looking at western digital, seagate and maxtor at the moment as they are under 10er on ebay.
Thing is im using a 16gb usb stick so an 80gb hard drive will do for now and with the games the kids dont like I can remove and replace with something else.

[happy_highlander]

Yeah I know what your saying but we dont have 2 pence to scratch our ars* with!!! so need to go for the cheaper option! Im looking at western digital, seagate and maxtor at the moment as they are under 10er on ebay.
Thing is im using a 16gb usb stick so an 80gb hard drive will do for now and with the games the kids dont like I can remove and replace with something else.

Remember if you are putting an internal hdd into a caddy both the caddy and drive need to be compatible or they will not work. You may find it is the caddy that's not compatible or working properly, but until you put another drive in it there is no way of testing it.

[ronnie5]

Remember if you are putting an internal hdd into a caddy both the caddy and drive need to be compatible or they will not work. You may find it is the caddy that's not compatible or working properly, but until you put another drive in it there is no way of testing it.

I think it may be the drive itself?
I have tested the read/write of my pc 'c' drive and my internal caddy drive and there is some difference.
1st picture is my 'c' drive 2nd pic is of internal caddy.

[happy_highlander]

I think it may be the drive itself?
I have tested the read/write of my pc 'c' drive and my internal caddy drive and there is some difference.
1st picture is my 'c' drive 2nd pic is of internal caddy.

There is always going to be a significant difference as your internal drive has a direct sata or ide ribbon into the motherboard the caddy is restricted to the speed of the usb connection