Is ther a guide to dumping GC/Wii games... for idiots? And a question or two

[Catoblepas]

I think I've got the gist of what I need to do. Install HBC, do some stuff, and boom, my games are now on my computer!

Ok, definitely more complicated than that, but that's about my understanding.

I think I've seen two different HBCs (hackmii and another, can't recall the name; perhaps it doesn't even exist and I'm simply misremembering). Which one do I use? I've seen warning of installing HBC or other software on certain wii update versions bricking the system. Can I get some specifics? How can I avoid this?

How much space would I need to back up my copy of Animal Crossing for GC?

Can I use an external hard drive for any portion of the dump? My only other alternative is a 1GB USB flash drive, and I can't see that being enough space for anything more than the software that I'll need to even start the whole process.

I asked for a guide for idiots because I'm looking for something without unexplained jargon or acronyms or cursory directions for what to do. I'm willing to look up terms and definitions and do research, but I haven't seen a guide that starts of at an early enough point where doing so would be useful; I guide that says, "hey, here is how you back up your games."

Thanks for reading. I'm sorry if I missed a glaringly obvious tutorial or posted this in the wrong section.

[Axxer]

The best place to go for guides on that kind of thing is http://www.wiibrew.org (TONS of guides there). Just go read around, find a method of homebrewing that will work for you (it all depends on what games you have) and do it. It doesn't end up being that hard.

I used Smash Stack and Super Smash Bros. Brawl -- if you have this game, search for Smash Stack on wiibrew and you should find a guide somewhere. From there, look up how to install apps for HBC on your SD card, install CleanRip (http://wiibrew.org/wiki/CleanRip) and go to work.

[Catoblepas]

Thanks for the response. Smash Stack is perfect for me. Yeah the whole process seems a lot simpler now. Set up the files on my SD card root menu, fire up Brawl, go to map editor, then install HBC and BootMii.

After that, how does CleanRip work? Will I be able to rip to a device other than the one CleanRip is on, like an external hard drive?

[Axxer]

Yeah. When you dump the games it will ask you if you want to use a FAT32 USB drive (or stick) or your sd card. Just choose the HDD. Then choose 4GB as the dump part size and go.
When you get the iso parts (like "GMSE01.part0.iso") you will need to use the command line to combine the files. I don't know how to do this on windows, as I used a Mac, but you should be able to look up "combine iso parts" online to figure it out.

[Shonumi]

For Windows, you need to use the copy command with the /b argument. This is an example I ripped off of AnyOldName3 :3

Code:

copy /b *.part0.iso+*.part1.iso+*.part2.iso+*.part3.iso+*.part4.iso fulliso.iso

On Linux and Unix systems, there are a number of ways you could do it, it's almost an art. I prefer using cat with some output redirection operators, nothing fancy.

[Axxer]

I knew it was something that didn't make much sense.

cat makes way more sense to me than copy. I concatenate my iso parts, I don't copy them into a common file.