I have a toshiba canvio external hard drive. When ever its plugged into the wii u it formats it recognizes it and all that stuff but for some reason when i have it plugged into my wii u, it freezes constantly! is anyone else having this problem? If so what external hard drive do you use?

Do you connect your HardD to the power? do you connect it to your Wii U with a ''Y'' cable? Iwata mentioned that in a direct (that it wouldn't work properly w/o at least one of those conditions)... well that's all i remember, maybe someone else can tell you more.

yeah, pretty much got warned about that even before the system was released.  I got the Canvio myself (matches the look of the deluxe Wii U), and I have a 3.0 Y USB cable from amazon for under $10!!!

Is this a common problem for people? My WiiU hasn't frozen yet but my brother's froze the other day just when entering or exiting the browser, first time I had seen it.

No problem here. It's gathering dust just fine.

The Wii U seems to have been registering complaints since the day 1 from many customers. There's an immediate need for all of it to be addressed soon by Nintendo. The sales are actually not yet in their favor when this is already happening.

Mine doesn't...gots lots of fun using it with Trine 2, ZombieU, Darksiders2, Ninja Gaiden: RE, and NSMB:U.  In addition, using my Netflix has never been easier than it has been since the Wii U.  Try buying the basic, it's only $299 (I got the Deluxe) a great deal for a new gen system.

I cant see my last reply so Ill say it quickly here. If you have an external HD that goes into standby then that will be causing your problem. I found a driver on the seagate website that allowed me to turn standby off. Thats fixed it for me. Good luck.

The lock-ups were due to OS code and network issues. I haven't had a freeze since the December patch.

Now, your drive could be increasing the chances for the issue as it adds another layer of latency and connectivity. Meaning, the issue is not 100% fixed just really really minor now, but network and other connected items could make it more apparent for some users.

btw, even the gaf thread on this topic has died off almost completely as very few people still have any form of lock-ups. Its growing pains of a new system. Its gotten better already and will be gone eventually.

In my case it was locking up after every level of a Nintendoland game. That no longer happens now ive removed the Standby option on my harddrive.