A few newbie questions.

[Kogita]

I think I'll be holding off updating until someone gets around it somehow, but in the meantime, a few quick questions that I haven't managed to find any reliable answers to.
Is there any chips or methods that allow backups to run off a hard drive, eg. an external drive from the usb port?
How does The Wii handle backed up GC games, and do I need a special type of disk? (assumeing the above is a no.)
How does the Wii handle GC games in general? do I need a Gamecube controller to fully use the backwards capability, and do I need a special adaptor for it?

[JKKDARK]

Remember you need a modchip for Gamecube backups.

Is there any chips or methods that allow backups to run off a hard drive, eg. an external drive from the usb port?

No, it's not possible.