How to extract ROMs from Wii U VC games
Extracting the ROMs out of your VC Games means that you can use the ROMs from this guide on an emulator on your PC or another console.
Before you begin, if you are using Windows, make sure that File Name Extensions is enabled in File Explorer, like in the image below.
Also make sure that your USB storage device or SD card is formatted as FAT32. If it is not, use one of these tools to do so:
- Windows - GUIFormat
- Linux - GParted
- macOS - Disk Utility
- macOS Users: Always select “MS-DOS (FAT)”, even if the device is larger than 32GB.
Dumping the VC Games
Dumpling
- Insert the USB Device or SD Card into your Wii U
- If prompted, do not format any USB devices through the Wii U.
- Open the Internet Browser on your console and go to
dumplingapp.com
- Tap “Launch dumpling”.
- If your console freezes for more than 10 seconds, hold down the Power button for 4 seconds and reboot.
- Once rebooted, reset the browser’s save data and try again.
- Select “Dump Digital Games”.
- Select all the games you want to dump using the DPad/A button and then press Start.
- Make sure the account is set accordingly, then select Start to begin dumping. (this could take a while)
- Once finished, press start to exit Dumpling and insert your USB storage device or SD card into your computer.
- Copy all the games you want to extract from
sd:/dumpling/games
to somewhere on your computer.
DumpsterU
DumpsterU requires a USB Device that has been formatted by the Wii U, and the otp.bin and seeprom.bin from your NAND Backup. DumpsterU also does not support macOS. |
- Download the latest release of DumpsterU for your OS.
- Insert the USB drive into your Computer. Do not format the drive if promted to.
- Open up DumpsterU on your PC. Ubuntu users may have to open it through the terminal with
sudo
. - Select your USB drive and insert your otp.bin and seeprom.bin into DumpsterU and click Ok.
- Select the game you want to extract and select a place to store it. (You have to do this step with every game you want to extract.)
Extraction
NES/SNES/GBA/FDS/PCE/TurboGrafx-16
What you need
- wiiu-vc-extractor (download the respective .zip file for your operating system)
Instructions
- Extract the contents of
wiiu-vc-extractor-xxxxx-x64.zip
to a folder on your computer.- If your game is a NES/SNES/FDS/TurboGrafx-16 game, go into
/code
and copy the.rpx
file into the same folder that you extractedwiiu-vc-extractor
into. - If your game is a GBA game, go into
/content
and copy the both files into the same folder that you extractedwiiu-vc-extractor
into. - If your game is a PCE game, go into
/content
and copy the.pkg
file into the same folder that you extractedwiiu-vc-extractor
into.
- If your game is a NES/SNES/FDS/TurboGrafx-16 game, go into
- Open a Command Prompt or a Terminal and enter these commands:
cd [path to your wiiu-vc-extractor folder]
Linux and macOS only: chmod +x wiiuvcextractor
wiiuvcextractor [dump file without the brackets]
Nintendo 64
Intructions
- In your dump go into
/content/rom
. There should be a single file in that folder. Rename its extension to.z64
.
Nintendo DS
Instructions
- In your game dump go into
/content/0010
. There should be a file calledrom.zip
and have a.nds/.srl
file inside it. If it is an.srl
file you can rename it to.nds
and have it work that way.
Nintendo Wii
What you need
- nfs2iso2nfs
- If you are using Windows, .NET Framework version 4.5.2 or newer
- If you are using Linux/macOS, wine
Instructions
- Copy the
nfs2iso2nfs.exe
to the content folder of the dump. - Run
nfs2iso2nfs.exe
(You have to do this step with every game you want to extract.):- Windows:
cd [path to content folder of the wii game]
nfs2iso2nfs.exe -dec
- Linux/macOS:
cd [path to content folder of the wii game]
wine nfs2iso2nfs.exe -dec
Issues
Nintendo Wii
Q: When running the exe I get “AES key missing”. What do I do?
A. You are missing htk.bin in the /code folder. Redump your game.
Q. When running the exe I get “Wii Common Key not found”. What do I do?
A. You are missing the Wii Common Key (not WiiU) in the dump. Get the Wii Common Key from your otp.bin
dump and put it into a file called wii_common_key.bin
with a hex editor.
(will add more if more issues arise)
Credits
lendun for writing the wiiuvcextractor/N64/opening sections, figuring out how to select a default Github Pages theme/Creating the original guide.
Lazr for writing the DS/Wii/issues sections and helping with fact checking.
Gary and other Wii U helpers in the NH Discord server for helping with fact checking.
all the amazing developers who made the software used in this guide!