WBFS2FAT Wii

WBFS2FAT
WBFS2FAT
	File:Wbfs2fat.png
General
Author	PsyBlade
Type	PC Utilities
Version	0.9.0 beta2
License	Mixed
Last Updated	2013/01/03
Links
	Download
	Website

WBFS2FAT is a tool that transforms a hard drive from WBFS to FAT32, enabling access to the drive without requiring a backup manager and allowing the drive to be repurposed for other functions. All games are preserved during the process.

An alternative Python version for other operating systems is also provided.

Features

Convert a WBFS partition into a Fat32 partition - on the fly/in place.
Keep games as 4GiB splited ID6.wbfs files in wbfs folder.
Blazing fast - over 10GiB/s (50GiB Test in 4.27s).
Need very little space on other drives: only ~0.0125% of the partition size for Backup and RAM.
Windows + Linux (with some adjustments everything that runs python).
Both GUI and CLI available.
Designed with security in mind:
- Only modifies disk after all other computations.
- Creates backup of modified data.

User guide

Requirements

Windows(.exe) - Nothing.
Linux(.py) - python (+PyQt4 for GUI).
Windows(.py) - python + pywin32 + WMI for python (+PyQt4 for GUI).
Windows(Cygwin .py) - Cygwin + its python package.
(The versions marked "update" need to be copied over the next earlier full version).

Usage GUI

Run wbfs2fat without options (e.g. double click).
Select partition from list.
Click "convert to Fat32".

Usage CLI

"wbfs2fat --help" to see all options.
"wbfs2fat -m scan" to list of all wbfs partitions.
"wbfs2fat -m convert " to convert.

Exit Codes descriptions

0: No Error
Everything went as expected

1: General Error
Something totally unexpected happened
Post the output and ask

2: Argument Error
Check the command line options for typos and the like

3: Not a WBFS partition (missing magic)
Partition is probably not in WBFS format.
If it really should be a WBFS at least the identifier in the header is missing.

4: Unknown WBFS Version
So far I only encountered versions 0 and 1.
If other versions appear wbfs2fat needs to be updated first.

5: additional free Blocks needed
Conversion needs more free space.
See chapter "Space" it the tutorial for details.

6: WBFS is corrupted: Blocks used multiple Times
Two or more games claim ownership of the same WBFS data, but only one can be right about it.
That meant that at least parts of some games are corrupted.
As possibly only a tiny part of a game was overwritten this may have gone unnoticed for years.

This is caused by a known bug in the original version of the wbfs C library.
If you delete a game using a manager, loader or whatever uses an affected library,
parts of another game are marked as free too. If you add a game (even with a good lib)
these parts are overwritten and the original game is corrupted.
Unfortunately it is impossible to recover the data, delete and re-rip is the only way to fix it.

wiimms "wwt" can figure out which game the block really belongs to and delete the corrupted ones.
You need to download it and run it from a command-line.
For details on how to do this see wit verify.

If you can or want not do this there is another way.
Run wbfs2fat with the "ignore-error-6" option. This will generate one copy of the affected block for
each game that claims it. This will NOT fix nor identify the corrupted games.
But it will allow you to go ahead while keeping your games in the same (bad) shape they are in now.

7: permission denied
wbfs2fat was unable to read any data from the partition.
Most likely you simply lack the rights required to do so. Try running wbfs2fat as admin/root.
And try closing all WBFS mangers because they sometimes lock the drives.
Empty CD drives and the like can show this too.

External links

Official site - https://www.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/~t_schmid/wbfs2fat/
GBAtemp - https://gbatemp.net/threads/wbfs2fat-py.291320/
Detailed Tutorial/Howto - https://gbatemp.net/threads/how-to-convert-from-wbfs-to-fat32-or-ntfs.292391/