Originally posted by AMatthews:

---

Not every single hard drive will work. The ones that do and don't isn't quite by brand however.

Some of them have issues where if you leave them alone for too long they spindown and can't manage to spin back up.

Take a look at this when you get a chance (the site seems to be having issues right now): http://wiki.gbatemp.net/wiki/index.php/U...patibility_List

Yes a thumb drive can be used. I've had no problems with my 8GB DaneElec flash drive.

The HDD has to be formatted to WBFS (Wii Backup File System) as opposed to something such as NTFS (New Technology File System)
You can do this by using the backup loader itself or by using your computer and WBFS Manager.

It's also alright for a hard drive to be dual partitioned. That is a set amount of GB as FAT32 or whatever you want it as and another set of GB as WBFS.

And the guide is the first stickied thread in this Wii section of the forums. New and improved guide by Larrylje. http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/773505
Particularly near the end of it.

---

Originally posted by AMatthews:

---

What are you trying to format it to?

If you want to format it to WBFS you can put the flash drive in one of the USB ports at the back of your Wii and then load the USB Launcher

or you could put the flash drive in one of the USB ports on your computer and use WBFS Manager.
Select the drive of your flash drive and click format.

http://wbfsmanager.codeplex.com/

---