So I tried to use so file recovery software to help my mom out with something. You might've seen the topic. Well, after using it (and setting my external HDD as the location to save recovered files to), my HDD is no longer recognized by the Wii. Period. Not one of my applications detects the drive when all was well before hand. I've tried reformatting the WBFS partition and the fat32 partition separately, and I've tried reformatting the entire drive to a fat32 partition. All I get is a beeping sound from my external hdd. Anyone got a clue as to what I can do? I made a topic at Wiihacks that has the sysCheck readout, if that helps.
I'm not sure what would be causing a "beeping" sound, but you may want to try wiping the MBR and recreating the partition table. I don't know how to do this on Windows, but on Linux, you can do this with command-line fdisk using the 'o' command. (Make sure you're sure you selected the correct drive if using Linux fdisk, because it's fairly easy to select the wrong drive by accident :v)
I should mention that the beeping doesn't occur when plugged into a PC. I'll search for a way to take care of the MBR and report with my results.
No good. I used a low level formatting tool to completely wipe the hard drive and created a new partition, formatting it with fat32 once again. nada. zip. Infact, anytime I try to transfer any of my 4.7gb wii rips onto the fat32 drive, windows tells me that there isn't space on the hard drive for it. Welp. Though WBFS Manager has no problem if I make the drive a wbfs partition. Then there's this. I'm pretty sure that isn't right :v:
There's no such thing as a "low-level format" on an IDE, SCSI, or SATA drive. The best you can do is a full wipe. FAT32 doesn't support files larger than 4 GB. This may be a limitation of the USB drive case. In fact, that might be the entire problem. Try using a different USB HDD case (or SATA to USB adapter) and see if that works. Also, that "HDD Low Level Format Tool" is most likely written by some hackjob who doesn't know what a low-level format is. (A low-level format rewrites the sector and track synchronization information, which was necessary on old MFM/RLL drives, but is done at the factory on IDE/SATA/SCSI drives and cannot be done once the drive leaves the factory.)
So how can I wipe the MBR and recreate the partition table in windows xp? I mean, I could go and buy some disks and make an ubuntu live cd and do things that way but if I can avoid it...you know. EDIT: I don't have much of a problem busting open this portable harddrive and buying another sata-to-usb adapter or enclosure. I'm just going to...you know. Try everything else first!
Unfortunately I don't know of any way to wipe the MBR in Windows, though it sounds more like there's some weird issue with the USB/SATA bridge in the enclosure than a partitioning problem. Try using a different SATA/USB bridge and/or enclosure. I'd recommend buying something like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812232002 - It's not an enclosure, but it's very useful for quickly connecting internal HDDs for recovery purposes, and then you could get a regular USB SATA enclosure after verifying that it's the original enclosure that's broken and not the drive itself.
I need a bit more of a quick resolution. I'll just grab something like that from Best Buy and return it when I'm done with it. Or heck, just get an enclosure and return it if it doesn't work. Cheers GerbilSoft.
