To Burn Wii games or not to ? That's the question. The Wii is increasing in popularity, and as such there is a huge demand for games. Even worse, games are expensive, so what happens if you scratch the disc or something? Read on to find out how to burn Wii games that you can use as a backup.
Okay now before you get into this, it's update yourself on the copyright laws in your area. In most places, it's legal to burn Wii games, as long as you own the original, and that the copies are for your personal use only, IE as backups. This is the most common law, but please check it out in your area all the same - there are no Wiis in jail, so you don't really want to end up there right?
First of all, it's not possible to do any copying or anything with the Wii itself, so you'll need to use your computer, and you will need a specific kind of DVD Drive in order to get it working. You need one of the LG-816 series, most notably 8161b, 8162b or 8163b. There is plenty of information about these on Google, so perform a quick search if you need to, and if you are having trouble finding the drives you need to burn Wii games, check Ebay, you can usually get them there.
You need to make an image of the disc before you can burn Wii games, so in addition to the DVD drive, you will need to install some software called .net Framework 2.0, and Raw Dump 2.0
The first thing you need to do to burn Wii games is to put the game you want to burn inside your LG dvd drive. Once it's in, open the Raw Dump file (should have been created after installation) and double click on the rawdump.exe file to get the rawdump program fired up.
Once rawdump opens, you will get a dialog box. Click the button that says Start Dump, and you will soon be ready to burn Wii games. The next part of the process is largely about patience. Due to the size of the files on a DVD, you will need to wait quite a while for the dump to finish. Waiting time will vary due to computer spec and hardware etc, but it can be anywhere between 1 hour and about 5 hours, if you have a slow computer.
Once it's finished, you should see a new file in the rawdump folder, an ISO file, with the same name as whatever game you copied. An ISO file is simply a perfect image of what was previously on a disc. You'll get familiar with these files if you intend to burn Wii games as a habit.
The last two parts of the process are probably the simplest thing you need to do when you burn Wii games. First of all, once the dump finishes, right click on the new file and choose Properties. What you are looking for here is the size of the file. ALL Wii game ISOs are 4.7 Gb in size, which is the same size as a blank DVD, so you can see that the image dump has picked up everything. Anything different from this and you will need to begin again, as it's not possible to burn Wii games if the ISOs are the wrong size!
Once you have the right size, all you need to do to perform the actual burning of the Wii games is to get your preferred burning software, start a new project, and instruct it to burn the ISO image onto a brand new blank DVD. This part can be a little finicky, and if you use low quality discs you'll find you have problems with unreadable games etc.
In order to play the Wii games that you burned, you will either need to get your Wii fitted with a modchip, or use one of several SD card modifications. Tutorials for both of these can easily be found on the net.
As you've seen, if you've an urge to burn Wii games, it can be done, but be aware of your own local laws and regulations. Check out the links below to see where you can download free games.
