How to Transfer Wii Games from One Drive to Another (Drive-to-Drive)

Wii Backup Manager 0.4.5 Build 78 by fig2k4 can open two drives in separate Drive tabs and transfer games directly between them, converting nothing that is already in WBFS form, so migrating a library to a bigger drive does not mean starting again from your ISOs.

Drive upgrades are the usual trigger: the 250 GB drive that once felt enormous fills up, or an ageing drive starts clicking and you want the library safe on fresh hardware. Doing the move inside Wii Backup Manager preserves the exact folder structure loaders expect and lets you verify the copy in the same tool. This guide covers preparation, the transfer itself, and the checks to run before you wipe or retire the old drive.

Before You Start: Prepare the New Drive

Format the destination drive first, while it is still empty: FAT32 is the default recommendation, for the reasons in formatting a drive FAT32 for Wii. Confirm the destination has at least as much free space as the used space on the source — WBFS libraries are compact, so the used figure, not the source drive’s total capacity, is what matters. Connect both drives to the PC at the same time; a powered USB hub helps if ports are scarce, and if the new drive is the reason for the upgrade, buy once and buy properly.

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Step 1: Open Both Drives in Drive Tabs

  1. Launch Wii Backup Manager.
  2. In the Drive 1 tab, select the source drive (your current Wii drive) and let the game list load.
  3. In the Drive 2 tab, select the destination drive.
  4. Sanity-check both tabs: Drive 1 should show your full library with sizes; Drive 2 should show empty or only what you expect. If the letters look swapped, stop and fix the selection before transferring anything.

Loading a large source drive can take a moment while the program reads every game folder. That read is also a health check: games that fail to load here are already damaged on the source, and it is better to learn that now than after the old drive is wiped.

Step 2: Select and Transfer

In the source Drive tab, tick every game you want to move — or select all for a full migration. Click Transfer and choose the other drive as the destination. Because both sides are already in WBFS layout, the program copies the game folders as they are, including split .wbfs + .wbf1 pairs, which travel together automatically. Copying within the same filesystem layout is much faster than re-converting from ISO, but a large library will still take a while over USB — let it run, watch the log, and do not disconnect either drive.

For a partial move — say, only moving some games to a second drive for the kids’ Wii — the same steps apply with a smaller selection. The destination simply needs the games you ticked, and its library will contain exactly those.

Step 3: Verify the Copy Before Retiring the Old Drive

  • Compare counts: the destination Drive tab should list the same number of games as you selected on the source.
  • Compare total size: the destination’s used space should match the source selection closely. A large shortfall means an interrupted copy.
  • Check split games kept their .wbf1 parts (they sit in the same game folder — see merging .wbf1 files for why they matter).
  • Put the new drive in the Wii and boot two or three games, including one large split title, in USB Loader GX.

Only after those checks pass should you reformat or repurpose the old drive. If the new drive is not recognised by the console at all, run through USB Loader GX not recognising the drive before assuming the copy failed — port and power issues are more common than copy failures.

After the Move: Covers and Housekeeping

Covers live alongside the library; if any art is missing on the new drive, run the GameTDB covers download for the destination once. Keep the old drive untouched for a few days of normal play as a fallback — a migration is only finished when the new drive has survived real use. For the broader library workflow, including adding new games to the new drive, return to the complete Wii Backup Manager guide and adding games to a USB drive.

How Long Should a Migration Take — and When to Worry

A drive-to-drive copy is bounded by the slower of the two drives and the USB connection they share, so a large library can legitimately take an hour or more. Steady progress in the transfer window — games completing one after another, the log growing — is healthy, even when it is slow. The patterns that should make you stop and investigate are different: the same game restarting repeatedly, the destination drive disconnecting and reappearing in Windows, or long freezes with drive activity lights off. Those point to a cable, port or power problem, usually the destination drive not getting enough power through a hub. Connect both drives directly to the PC, swap the cable, and resume with only the games that are missing from the destination.

Resuming is safe because the destination is just a set of game folders: anything already copied completely does not need to be copied again, and anything partial should be deleted from the destination and transferred fresh so you are not trusting a half-written game. The count-and-size verification in Step 3 is what tells you which category each game falls into. Once the new drive passes its spot-boot tests, label the old drive with the migration date and store it as your backup until the new drive has a few weeks of play on it — the cheapest backup policy is simply not wiping the old drive yet.

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