Support NeoGAF

[Canon]

UPDATE: I solved this issue. The hard drive had plenty of errors (failing) but this program called HDD Raw Image was able to clone my external drive onto another one and the Wii U recognized it and let me copy my most precious data (didn't bother with data that I don't care about.) I might run into problems later though if the data is corrupt.

Link: http://hddguru.com/software/HDD-Raw-Copy-Tool/

----
Turned on my console today and noticed a red X next to my Download List. An error is displayed for every game on the list. This error code, 105-0321, is not listed on Nintendo's website, and there are almost no Google search results. This forum post will be the most documentation it has (I think).

Turns out my USB hard drive which has worked fine for a couple years suddenly isn't being recognized. It won't show up in Storage Settings, and all games and game save data that were on it are now simply gone. All my virtual console games, eShop games, save data, etc. have vanished. Anything on the internal storage is fine... which is basically just Super Smash Bros.

If this were any other console, this would not be a big deal for the following reasons:

1) On Wii, there are ways to back-up save data easily, and even back-up entire games.
2) On PS3 and 360, you can back-up save data to the cloud, to USB storage, to a computer, etc.
3) On Xbox One, save data is always backed up to the cloud automatically. On PS4, 1 GB of save data can be automatically backed up.
4) On Nintendo 3DS, saves are on the cartridge, and you can relatively easily back-up save data.

Now, there is probably some way I could've backed up save data on the Wii U, but it wasn't easily apparent. I've heard that you actually have to back-up the entire game to another USB hard drive (you can't just back-up save data by itself?), but obviously it's too late for this so it doesn't matter to me.

OK, whatever, this wouldn't be so bad if I could do one thing... use other people's save data.

If I could download saved data online from other users for games like Tokyo Mirrage Sessions (which I'm never gonna play again if I have to redo like 30 hours), then this would be a minor inconvenience to me. I'd stick their save data on a SD card and make do with the fact that it's better than nothing. Only problem is, Wii U cannot do this -- you cannot use any save data other than your own. All data is locked to your console, so you can't share save data.

So, I've determined that there's nothing that can be done if my hard drive is the problem. To discern if it is, I've taken these steps:

1) I changed from the back USB ports (yes, I'm using USB Y-Cables) to the front USB ports. Nothing.
2) I've restarted the console, left it on for a while, etc. Nothing.
3) I've plugged the hard drive into my Windows computer. Nothing appears -- expectantly, because it's formatted to Wii U's special formatting. However--the drive does show up in "Device Manager." It also lights up and is clearly on; makes noise, etc.
4) I've connected another hard drive to the Wii U and the system prompts to format it, so the Wii U itself can still detect hard drives.
5) I've changed hard drive cables. Nothing.

[For those wondering it is a Western Digital My Passport 500 GB with a USB Y Cable (a USB cable that has two ends so it can be powered properly by the Wii U. It's important to note that this isn't the problem because even hard drives without USB Y cables will still initially be recognized by the Wii U. This hard drive cannot be recognized at all.)]

Conclusion?
Given that other hard drives can be recognized (even those without Y cables or external power), something must be wrong with at least the Wii U and this specific hard drive; or the hard drive itself.

I could re-format the hard drive in Windows and see if the hard drive works then -- and if it does, that would mean the hard drive wasn't at fault. But I don't want to do this just yet until I'm sure there's no way I can save my precious Wii U data.

Next steps
I'll see if anyone here has any ideas.

My Wii U is out of warranty so I'm not keen on sending it to Nintendo only for them to tell me there's nothing that can be done. To be clear, everything else on the Wii U works, and I can still re-download my games etc. (although Wave Race curiously doesn't give me an owner's discount for transferring my Wii license years ago while everything else does...maybe unrelated).

Other than that, I will have to accept the fact I will never play some of my games again because I don't have the patience for it, and I don't want this to happen again.

 

[TheMoon]

They can remote transfer your games to a new system so that's not an issue, just keep the serial # of the thing for whenever that might become a thing you want to deal with.

Saves are RIP unless they finally get on that cloud storage thing they hinted at. They have this active for Miitomo but that's obviously no use to you. They never confirmed if cloud saves were going to be implemented for current systems or just one of the future features for them with the Nintendo Account/My Nintendo system.

Condolences for your saves.

edit: okay, now realized the issue is just the external drive and the system itself is fine

 

[Griss]

This happened to me and I was devastated. I was sure it was a hard drive failure.

3 days later I tried again and my hard drive worked. I transfered almost everything I had to a new one before it failed (for the last time) and I lost some, but not much, data.

Don't reformat your drive until you are absolutely, 100% sure that it's dead. Once you reformat that sucker it's all over.

 

[MR ARCADE FOREVER]

Make a YouTube video burring the corpse

 

[Rich!]

one of the reasons why I have backed up all of my Wii U and 3DS games (digital and physical) and the save games via homebrew.

 

[SatoAilDarko]

I'm so sorry. Definitely the shittiest thing about the Wii U.

I know people talk about region-free being their biggest want for NX but Cloud Saves edge that out for me.

Personally I keep copies of saves on both the Wii U and an external drive. Overwriting the saves on the internal every so often.

Should probably take the hard drive a back up to something else too.

 

[TunaLover]

OP you can inject saves from other users, it involve homebrew though.
Tutorial
Saves compilation

 

[Googledotcom666]

Not 100% sure if this will work with a Wii U drive, but you could try disc image copy software to clone the defective drive providing it's not too corrupt.

Again I'm not sure which would support the Wii U file system

 

[Canon]

This happened to me and I was devastated. I was sure it was a hard drive failure.

3 days later I tried again and my hard drive worked. I transfered almost everything I had to a new one before it failed (for the last time) and I lost some, but not much, data.

Don't reformat your drive until you are absolutely, 100% sure that it's dead. Once you reformat that sucker it's all over.

Interesting that it worked 3 days later. Is that old hard drive now dead?

 

[mikeyvids]

Is it possible to clone a Wii external hard drive to create a backup to a secondary external hard drive, using archival software like Carbon Copy Cloner for backup?

 

[ipukespiders]

OP, I've got nothing to offer to help but I just wanted to say it's a nicely detailed post.
So often people just put up a short rant with little information to go on. It looks like you've done your homework.

 

[blu]

Now, there is probably some way I could've backed up save data on the Wii U, but it wasn't easily apparent.

Is it possible to clone a Wii external hard drive to create a backup to a secondary external hard drive, using archival software like Carbon Copy Cloner for backup?

You don't have to. Just plug in a second USB storage device into the wiiU, the system will guide you through the rest.

 

[petran79]

let me guess...Seagate?

 

[adroit]

let me guess...Seagate?

For those wondering it is a Western Digital My Passport 500 GB with a USB Y Cable

.

 

[wazoo]

Sorry for you, but at least you can change you HD probably.

My internal memory is fucked and I can not save anything into it. This is a very well documented problem.

Still, your problem seems to be fixable.

 

[Canon]

Sorry for you, but at least you can change you HD probably.

My internal memory is fucked and I can not save anything into it. This is a very well documented problem.

Still, your problem seems to be fixable.

I'm not sure if it's fixable so much as there's a slight chance I might get lucky and after a few days it'll start working again, somehow...

OP, I've got nothing to offer to help but I just wanted to say it's a nicely detailed post.
So often people just put up a short rant with little information to go on. It looks like you've done your homework.

Thanks. I knew this would show up in a Google search.

As far as letting the Wii U back up to a second drive, this is not possible for me because the Wii U doesn't detect that this drive is even connected to it.

 

[iamaustrian]

You don't have to. Just plug in a second USB storage device into the wiiU, the system will guide you through the rest.

wow. I didn't know that.
so if I plug a second HDD into my WiiU it will create a 1:1 copy of the already existing HDD?
what happens to the original HDD? will it still have all the data and games or will the procedure just transfer all things to the new HDD (like the wii to wiiu transfer)?

 

[Footos22]

Ps4 is 10gb cloud storage, not 1

 

[Garou]

Try this:

Connect the drive to the Wii U again.
Boot to the Main menu (not quick boot).
Go to system settings.
Open storage management.
Select "initialize a drive". Don't worry, nothing happens at this stage.
The Wii U will search for a drive for some time and then maybe ask you if you really want to format. Just cancel there, and the drive might get recognized again!

The move any saves you have to internal storage. (Delete the game-data in the folder if you have no space)

 

[Erdnuckel01]

Had something similar happen to my HDD once, but the huge difference was it was a standard 2.5" drive in a seperatley bought enclosure.

The WiiU was not recognizing the drive at all, or if it did it would crash a few seconds later, the solution was to put the HDD in a differnt enclosure and everything was fine, the thing is - I don't know if it would still be possible to do this with current external HDDs and would only try as an absoulte last resort as it might as well kill the drive for good.

 

[Piccoro]

Welcome to the club. I lost all my Wii save data during the Wii->Wii U transfer (4/5 years worth of data.) Thank you for that, Nintendo archaic account transferring methods.

I hope you get your data back, OP.

 

[Social]

The exact same thing happened to me 2 weeks ago. I've just... accepted it. I'll redownload all the games at one point and start over .

 

[blu]

wow. I didn't know that.
so if I plug a second HDD into my WiiU it will create a 1:1 copy of the already existing HDD?
what happens to the original HDD? will it still have all the data and games or will the procedure just transfer all things to the new HDD (like the wii to wiiu transfer)?

It will give you a midnight-commander-style functionality to move and/or copy data across the two.

 

[Canon]

Try this:

Connect the drive to the Wii U again.
Boot to the Main menu (not quick boot).
Go to system settings.
Open storage management.
Select "initialize a drive". Don't worry, nothing happens at this stage.
The Wii U will search for a drive for some time and then maybe ask you if you really want to format. Just cancel there, and the drive might get recognized again!

The move any saves you have to internal storage. (Delete the game-data in the folder if you have no space)

Tried this now, didn't work. Searched for a few mins then gave a different error code.

Had something similar happen to my HDD once, but the huge difference was it was a standard 2.5" drive in a seperatley bought enclosure.

The WiiU was not recognizing the drive at all, or if it did it would crash a few seconds later, the solution was to put the HDD in a differnt enclosure and everything was fine, the thing is - I don't know if it would still be possible to do this with current external HDDs and would only try as an absoulte last resort as it might as well kill the drive for good.

I took my WD My Passport out of the enclosure like 10 minutes ago; I know nothing about how it should work but nothing seemed broken inside. It does make a "beeping" noise occasionally.

Anyway, it seems to turn on without any enclosure on it, and so I don't think it can be put into an external enclosure.

Anyway shit is not working. Occasionally the Wii U will prompt me not to disconnect the hard drive while the console is still on, but it will never actually recognize that anything is connected to it beyond that.

 

[Canon]

Bit of an update.

Occasionally, the drive will show up in Windows, and then other times it won't show up. So the hard drive is failing.

I am using a program now called USBIT to save an image of the USB hard drive (a 1:1 clone; all 500 GB). It's currently at 10% progress (took about an hour), so provided that my hard drive doesn't crap out within those 10 hours, I might be able use that image and put it on a different hard drive. However, if the data on it is corrupted or something, this will be pointless.

I also don't have any spare hard drives so I'm gonna have to use my Xbox 360 hard drive to test this (my Wii U saved data is more important).

I had already downloaded every game again manually on my Wii U (which was a pain), so if this works that'll have been a waste of time.

 

[Apoc87]

Does the wii u transfer all of your eshop purchases to your nid account like the 3ds?

 

[PantsuJo]

This is the "Nintendo difference", right?

Tsk.

 

[Madao]

it's sad that most of the safeguards against this come from homebrew. nintendo needs cloud storage support and more flexible local save data backup options.

i made a backup of all the things i have currently just last week because i was thinking it had been a while since i had made a backup.

at least if my SSD kicks the bucket, i can just copy my save from the other HDD. if the whole system dies, it's a whole different ballgame but i believe homebrew would let me rescue all my stuff.

one thing you should do is put all the small games and save data in the wii u's internal storage. only use HDD for digital games that are big.

 

[Htown]

so for those who want to know, all you do to back up your saves is:

plug in whatever you're going to back up the saves to
go to settings->data management->copy/move/delete data

and it's pretty self explanatory from there

 

[Madao]

so for those who want to know, all you do to back up your saves is:

plug in whatever you're going to back up the saves to
go to settings->data management->copy/move/delete data

and it's pretty self explanatory from there

there's one problem with that. if your Wii U's internal NAND dies, you're boned since you can't use this data on a new Wii U even if you link the same NNID.

 

[PetrCobra]

It will give you a midnight-commander-style functionality to move and/or copy data across the two.

interesting... so I could get a cheap 32GB flash drive and back up all my saves to that easily?

there's one problem with that. if your Wii U's internal NAND dies, you're boned since you can't use this data on a new Wii U even if you link the same NNID.

Oh you gotta be kidding me. The save files won't work on another Wii U? Why, Nintendo?

 

[ozfunghi]

My HDD has had errors in the past... with a Y cable. After unplugging everything (including the power from the WiiU) and connecting again after that, it worked again. I've had this issue a couple of times, but now it's been a year since it last happened, and my HDD is still going strong.

 

[Canon]

interesting... so I could get a cheap 32GB flash drive and back up all my saves to that easily?

You have to back-up the entire game. There is no option to JUST move the Save Data. Or at least none that I see. So 32 GB wouldn't be enough (if you download more than 32 GB of games).

 

[Canon]

HDIT didn't work.

Then I downloaded this program, HDD Raw Copy, which clones the drive to another, and--- 10 hours later... I am now copying save data from my new cloned drive onto the Wii U.

During the 10 hour transfer it showed like 10 errors (like, "fatal hardware error," "cycle redundancy error," etc.) so maybe the data will be corrupted and it won't work right on my Wii U, but at least my Wii U is recognizing the hard drive now and allowing me to copy from it. I really just want my Splatoon and Tokyo Mirrage to work properly -- haven't tested yet.

So yeah, everyone should just use HDD Raw Copy to back-up your Wii U external drive. It will literally just 1:1 copy it and the reason it (tentatively!) worked over other programs is because it doesn't stop when it finds errors, it will actually ignore drive errors and continue the cloning procedure despite them.

But, for me, there's no guarantees the data will be usable...I guess I will see tomorrow. Oh, and avoid Western Digital My Passport. During my searches this is a common fucking problem where the device will suddenly not be recognized and fail.

EDIT: It worked!!!

I don't need to redo 60 hours in Tokyo Mirrage or like a billion hours in Splatoon now.

 

[Rich!]

HDIT didn't work.

Then I downloaded this program, HDD Raw Copy, which clones the drive to another, and--- 10 hours later... I am now copying save data from my new cloned drive onto the Wii U.

During the 10 hour transfer it showed like 10 errors (like, "fatal hardware error," "cycle redundancy error," etc.) so maybe the data will be corrupted and it won't work right on my Wii U, but at least my Wii U is recognizing the hard drive now and allowing me to copy from it. I really just want my Splatoon and Tokyo Mirrage to work properly -- haven't tested yet.

So yeah, everyone should just use HDD Raw Copy to back-up your Wii U external drive. It will literally just 1:1 copy it and the reason it (tentatively!) worked over other programs is because it doesn't stop when it finds errors, it will actually ignore drive errors and continue the cloning procedure despite them.

But, for me, there's no guarantees the data will be usable...I guess I will see tomorrow. Oh, and avoid Western Digital My Passport. During my searches this is a common fucking problem where the device will suddenly not be recognized and fail.

EDIT: It worked!!!

I don't need to redo 60 hours in Tokyo Mirrage or like a billion hours in Splatoon now.

Yay

Strongly advise you use homebrew to back up your saves now. You don't even need to install anything, just shove an app on your sd card and visit a certain website in the browser to load it.

http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=1215749&page=100000

 

[maxcriden]

I am so so happy this had a happy ending for you, OP. The thought of losing even one major save is painful enough, let alone a whole system's worth.

 

[MouldyK]

I am so so happy this had a happy ending for you, OP. The thought of losing even one major save is painful enough, let alone a whole system's worth.

My External died at the start of the year...only got my Xenoblade game and save now.


Casualties:

- Pikmin 3
- Captain Toad
- Super Mario 3D World
- Splatoon
- Bayonetta 1&2
- Mario Kart 8
- Klay Kirby
- Yarn Yoshi
- Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate
- Many Indie Games
- A Few Other Games.


If my hard-drive is still about, I'll see if I can do what OP did as no-one helped me for my problem. :/

 

[Lazaro]

My hard drive also failed a couple of months ago. It was an Toshiba 1TB external 2.5HDD that used Y cables. I was gonna clone the drive but I don't have 1TB to store the device data.

But I recently managed to get it working again, kind of, the HDD would sometimes turn off during certain situations on the Wii U but I managed to obtain my saves at least.


1. I took the HDD out of the crappy USB 3.0 Toshiba 2.5"HDD enclosure and placed it in a new USB 3.0 2.5"HDD enclosure I bought of eBay. I purchased this enclosure
2. Before connecting to Wii U, I removed the consoles AC Adapter from the power board and the console.
3. I then connected my 2.5HDD via Y cables to the back of the Wii U, I inserted the main USB into the bottom port and the 2nd cable to the top.
4. I then reconnect the AC adapter to the power board and console and proceed to power on the Wii U via the Power button on the actual console.
NOTE: I noticed that powering from the power button on the console had a much better success rate for picking up my HDD then using the GamePad to power on the Console.



and Voila the Wii U detected my 2.5 HDD. Sometimes it would disconnect again, like when the Wii U begins accessing the HDD for copy/move operation, returning to WaraWara Plaza etc. but I would then just repeat the procedure I posted above.

Hopes this helps others.