Wii U Disc Backup

Preserving Wii U discs with homebrew software

05-18-22

Table of Contents

• Prep
• Software
• Backup device
• SD card
• External drive
• Backup
• disc2app
• WUP Installer GX2
• Computer

Prep

Software

Download WUP Installer GX2 and disc2app

• Copy disc2app/wiiu/apps/disc2app to <SD CARD>/wiiu/apps/disc2app
• Copy wup_installer_gx2/wiiu/apps/wup_installer_gx2 to <SD CARD>/wiiu/apps/wup_installer_gx2

Backup device

SD Card

Discs will be saved to the SD card containing the homebrew payload and applications. The card must:

• be FAT32 format (already formatted for homebrew; DO NOT REFORMAT SD CARD)
• have 23.2G free space

Due to formatting, the SD card is unable to store more than 32GB regardless of the physical capacity. As such, it’s recommended to back up one disc at a time, copy/install the backup then delete it before moving on to the next game.

It may be possible to use a secondary FAT32-formatted SD card connected via USB adapter to save games to instead of the homebrew SD card. However, at the time of writing, I do not have a spare SD card to test with.

External drive

Discs can be reinstalled as digital copies on an external hard drive or flash drive. The drive must:

• be 2TB or less in size
• be plugged into the top rear USB port of the Wii U
• receive addition power from the bottom USB port via a dual-USB cable (or similar)

Whereas the original Wii supported standard FAT32/NTFS USB drives (with homebrew), the Wii U’s external drives are formatted proprietarily and are not accessible via a computer. Once a physical disc is copied to the SD card, it can be reinstalled as a system title on the Wii U’s external dive but not be transferred from the drive to a PC.

Power up the Wii U with the external drive connected, ensuring the primary USB cable is plugged into the top rear USB port. When prompted, format the USB on the Wii U.

Backup

disc2app

Ensure the Wii U’s disc drive is empty, then launch disc2app from the Homebrew Launcher.

Press “a” to dump to SD and insert the Wii U CD when prompted. The Wii U will reboot when completed.

WUP Installer GX2

Launch WUP Installer GX2 from the Homebrew Launcher.

The backed-up disc will appear on the list as WUP-P-<xxxx>. Select the file from the list and press “Install”. When prompted, select “USB”.

Computer

Power off the Wii U and insert the SD card into a computer. The raw game dump will be loated in <SD CARD/Install/WUP-P-<xxxx>. After coyping the folder, remove it from the SD card to free up space.

The raw game dump can be decrypted using CDecrypt.

Tagged: Backup Archival Homebrew