How to Legally Dump ROMs/ISOs of Nintendo Games
Part 2: Discs
How To Rip Gamecube Games
- CleanRip is a Gamecube and Wii optical disc backup tool for the Nintendo Wii. The 'Clean' in CleanRip comes from the fact that this tool does not require nor utilize any custom IOS (cIOS).
- Country: the best program to use to rip gamecube isos on your wii is CleanRip. It will produce perfect 1:1 images that will work perfectly with nintendont, devolution etc. Just move the iso to a folder on the root of ur SD or USB called games. Put the iso in a folder of the games name and rename the iso to game.iso.
In part 1 of this guide we discussed the basic methods of legally obtaining backups of your Nintendo game collection. Here in this guide, we’ll go into more detail on how this can be done for disc-based games. So, we’ll cover how to dump Nintendo discs for GameCube, Wii, and Wii U games.
The backups you obtain could then be used with emulators such as Dolphin or Cemu. Or, they could run directly on a modded console without the need for a disc. Remember, we’re focusing on legally obtaining these games and using them for legal purposes.
There are several ways to obtain backups of your discs. It can be done using consoles or even your PC if it’s compatible. Some methods even work with multiple types of discs (e.g. being able to dump GameCube AND Wii games). Although I’ve listed many methods, some aren’t recommended as they may be too complicated or impractical. Ultimately, it comes down to which systems and games you own and which methods are easiest to configure.
It's generally easier and faster to rip game discs via a Wii console, if you have one: Ripping Discs Using CleanRip. CleanRip can rip a game disc to an SD card or an external USB storage device. It requires your Wii or vWii system to have the Homebrew Channel. No GameCube titles take up more than 1.36 GiB (Gibibyte, or 1024 3.
Let’s go Dump Nintendo Discs!
GameCube games only – using a modded GameCube
Difficulty: 4 (hard)
We’ll start with the most complicated one. I don’t recommend this, unless you already have a modded GameCube for other purposes. Your money is better spent on a cheap Wii that can easily be modded, or a compatible disc drive for your PC. But, there may be some of you out there who find this method to be exactly what you need!
Needed:
– GameCube
– SD card (no more than 4GB)
– SD Card to Memory card adapter
– Action replay disc
– Or: Modchip & custom disc booting Swiss (homebrew loader)
Required homebrew applications:
– Clean Rip (game dumper)
Guides:
If your GameCube isn’t already configured to boot homebrew, follow this guide. There are several methods of doing so; choose whichever works best for you!
Dumping Discs:
Installation:
– Download Clean Rip from the link above and put the .dol file on the root of your SD Card
Using Clean Rip:
– Follow this guide.
Wii and GameCube games – using a Wii
Difficulty: 2 (easy)
Here’s my favorite method. In fact, it’s what I personally used to dump my Wii and GameCube collection. That’s because there are plenty of great tools to use, and the Wii is incredibly cheap and easy to hack. These are also reasons why I built a retro game console out of one and recommend you do too!
Needed:
– Wii
– SD card (any size) or HDD
Required homebrew application (either one):
– USB Loader GX (requires cIOS)
– Cleanrip (does not require cIOS)
Guides:
– Wii softmodding guide
Dumping Discs:
– Installing/Using USBLoaderGX
– Installing/Using Clean Rip
Wii and Gamecube games – using a PC
Difficulty: 1 (very easy)
This method may be super easy, but there’s a catch. Unfortunately, it’s only compatible with certain disc drives, so it’s likely your PC won’t be able to read GameCube or Wii games. Here’s alink to a list of drives that are compatible.
Needed:
– PC with compatible disc drive
Required Program (any of these):
– ImgBurn
– Wii backup manager (Wii games only)
– Friidump
Wii U & Wii games – using a Wii U
Difficulty: 3 (moderate)
This is a great method if you have a Wii U, and it’s the only way to rip Wii U games. It can also dump Wii games, using the same method as on an actual Wii. However, this method is a little more difficult and risky because it’s more complicated to install homebrew on a Wii U console compared to the Wii.
Needed:
– Wii U
– SD Card or HDD
Required homebrew applications:
– Disc2App (for ripping Wii U discs)
– USBLoaderGX or CleanRip (for ripping Wii discs)
Guides:
Wii U softmodding guide
Installing Wii homebrew on Wii U
Dumping Discs
Wii U discs:
Installing/Using Disc2App
Wii Discs:
How to Install USBLoaderGX or CleanRip on Wii U vWii mode (be careful):
– Extract the program folder to your sd/apps folder
– Run it via the homebrew channel in vWii mode
Usage:
– Using USBLoaderGX
– Using Clean Rip
This ends the article on dumping Nintendo game discs. Go ahead and backup your game collection!
Thanks for reading!
Let me know if you have any questions. I’m happy to assist! Please leave a comment below, and be sure to follow this blog by email if you find information like this useful!
Further reading:The Ellis Workshop’s Wii Hacking Guide
This page explains how to rip GameCube and Wii games and/or saves to be used on Dolphin. Ripping games and saves using a Wii or Wii U console will require you to have homebrew software installed. See Homebrew Channel for instructions on how to use it, and see Homebrew setup for installation instructions. The term 'vWii' means a Wii U console running in Wii mode.
- 2Ripping Discs Using CleanRip
- 6Retrieving Game Saves
Ripping Discs Using a Computer
Certain old models of PC DVD drives are able to rip game discs with Rawdump or Friidump.
It's generally easier and faster to rip game discs via a Wii console, if you have one:
Ripping Discs Using CleanRip
CleanRip can rip a game disc to an SD card or an external USB storage device. It requires your Wii or vWii system to have the Homebrew Channel.
GameCube Discs
No GameCube titles take up more than 1.36 GiB (Gibibyte, or 10243 bytes). It's generally a good idea to set Chunk Size to max, so that your ISO isn't split into parts. GameCube discs can store a maximum of 1.36 GiB, so the entire ISO can fit on a FAT32 drive. Simply follow the instructions on-screen and you'll be able to put the game straight from the SD card or USB drive into Dolphin.
Wii Discs
In order to rip a Wii disc, a storage device with more than 4.7 GiB of free space is recommended for single layer, 8.54 GiB for dual layer. However, by dividing the disc into chunks, an SD card with even a single gibibyte of free space is sufficient.
At the CleanRip Setup screen, set Chunk Size to 'Max', and New device per chunk to 'No' is recommended with SD cards or external USB storage devices large enough to hold the entirety of the ripped disc file at once. Otherwise, set Chunk Size to max possible ('1GB', '2GB', '3GB', or 'Max') and set New device per chunk to 'Yes' and when CleanRip is asking for the next device, remove it from the Wii and move the first or so ISO file to free up space and use it again. When all pieces have been received, check in the next subsection.
- CleanRip will split the ripped disc file with more than 4 GiB in file size regardless to fit the FAT, FAT16, or FAT32 file systems. These file systems have a max file size of 4 GiB. To remedy this, it is recommended to rip discs to a USB external NTFS formatted storage device (as Wii cannot read NTFS formatted SD cards). The NTFS file system has a theoretical max file size of 16 EiB (Exabyte), or 16,777,216GiB.
- Certain Wii discs are dual layer (or DVD9) instead of single layer (or DVD5). CleanRip will need to be configured in order to rip those kinds of discs. At the Wii Disc Ripper Setup screen, set Dual Layer to Yes. The rip will take roughly double the time than usual Wii discs of 4.38 GiB as the dual layer ISOs are 7.93 GiB in size.
Joining Split Files
A disc image in split parts will need to be joined before dolphin can read it. A simple command from command prompt and terminal can do it! Use the example command for your system. Use the 'cd' command to change directory to the file's location. The example command assumes CleanRip's 'GAMEID.part#.iso' filename nomenclature, and creates 'GAMEID.iso'. The part files can be deleted after the joined file is created.
Windows | Linux / macOS |
Ripping Discs Using USB Loader GX
A Wii or vWii with the latest version of USB Loader GX and certain cIOS (such as d2x-cios) installed can rip Wii game discs. The Wii system may also be able to rip GameCube game discs as long as DIOS MIOS is installed. Wiis sold after late 2011 and Wii Us lack the GameCube controller and memory card ports, and can make no use of DIOS MIOS. CleanRip is recommended over USB Loader GX for not requiring any cIOS and it does not leave out any data when ripping (USB Loader GX leaves out unused data).
The USB Loader GX will ask the user two options when inserting a game disc: Install or Mount DVD drive; choose 'Install'. It will begin the ripping process to the storage device:
- For Wii: X:wbfsGAMEID_*GAMEID.wbfs (and GAMEID.wbf1 as continuation file, if source is over 4,194,272 KiB)
- Dolphin build version 3.5 and later can accept Wii games in WBFS format.
- For GameCube: X:games* [GAMEID]game.iso (NOTE: file system must be FAT32)
Extracting discs from the Wii U eShop
To create an ISO image from an eShop Wii title, a CFW-enabled Wii U, a Wii U NAND dump (specifically the OTP and SEEPROM), an external hard drive formatted by the console with the Wii game(s) installed, nfs2iso2nfs and DumpsterU are required.
- Insert the drive into a computer with DumpsterU installed. Do not format if prompted.
- Open DumpsterU. Select your drive and OTP/SEEPROM locations.
- A game list should appear. Double-click the Wii game you want to extract and select a safe location in 'Output Folder'.
- Select 'Dump Game'. After DumpsterU finishes, navigate to the chosen folder.
- Navigate using a command line/terminal to the content folder in your dump (for example, Rhythm Heaven Fever:
101B0700gamecontent) - Run
nfs2iso2nfs.exe -decto begin the conversion process. - The game should appear as game.iso in the same directory.
Rename the output to whatever you wish and copy it to your Wii dump directory.
The image will most likely be missing its UPDATE partition and have a few minor errors. This is normal.
You might be able to dump the Wii game to your computer using another program such as Dumpling or DDD, however DumpsterU is the fastest method and is fairly straightforward.
Exporting Wii Channels
In order to turn a channel installed on a Wii or vWii into a WAD file that can be played in Dolphin, follow this guide. When asked if you want to fakesign the ticket or TMD, you should press B. (Most fakesigned WAD files do work in Dolphin, but they don't work better than correctly signed WAD files, and Dolphin may show warnings about them.)
Alternatively, if you do not want to use WAD files, you can copy the whole NAND memory of a console into Dolphin by following the NAND Usage Guide. This not only copies all channels that are installed on the console, but afterwards, you can also transfer channels between the console and Dolphin by using an SD card and the Wii Menu's data management screen.
Retrieving Game Saves
GameCube Memory Card
A homebrewed Wii with GameCube memory card ports or GameCube with SD Gecko is required.
Download GameCube/Wii Memory Manager (GCMM for short) and launch it through Homebrew Channel on the Wii. It's a homebrew app that can transfer save files between a real GameCube Memory Card and an SD card. It can extract an individual save as .GCI file or dump the entire contents (RAW or batch dump .GCI files) from a real memory card to the root of SD card. For the purpose of this guide you should extract what you need for Dolphin onto the SD card. Then they should be placed into GC for Dolphin to use while emulating a game. It is also possible for the data that was created with Dolphin to be added back into the real GameCube Memory Card using GCMM and an SD card.
Wii/vWii Internal Storage
This section is for ripping individual saves to be used on Dolphin. To dump an entire Wii's internal storage for use with Dolphin, skip this section and move ahead to NAND Usage Guide.
Download SaveGame Manager GX and launch it through Homebrew Channel on the Wii or vWii. It's a homebrew app that can transfer save files between the console's internal storage and an SD card. It can extract an individual save from the Wii's internal storage for Dolphin to use. Like GCMM, it is possible for save files that were created in Dolphin to be added back to the Wii by selecting the game in Dolphin to export the Wii save into a X:privatewii[GAMEID] format, then adding it back into the real console's NAND using SaveGame Manager GX and an SD card.