USB troubles !

anthony.gandolfo · 15 Sept 2017, 03:21

I just received my raspberry pi 3 kit from amazon. it came with the Pi, case, SD card, USB drive, and two controllers. Everything went fine in the install, but once I got retropie installed I ran into a problem. First of all, the USB that came in the kit doesn't work at all. My PC does not recognize it. So I used one that I had. 16 GB scandisk USB drive. this one has worked fine before this.

Ok, please note that I am not the most tech savvy guy around. I followed the instructions in the booklet and trusted in them through all of this. Here's what is going on.

I plug the USB into my PC, create a folder on it (named "retropie"), then I eject it, plug into Raspberry Pi, and then power it on. Note: my USB doesn't have a blinking light, so I just leave it in the Pi for a few minutes (all the way up to 10 mins). Then I take it out of the Pi and plug it into the PC. According to the booklet it should be putting some different folders onto the USB. well, it doesn't do it. I've done this numerous times, searched videos, and articles, and I have no way of solving this problem yet. what am I doing wrong? The videos I watch make it look so easy, but mine is being a headache. Please help

mitu · 15 Sept 2017, 04:02

First of all - https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first .
Second, is the USB drive you're using formatted correctly ? It should be formatted with a FAT32 filesystem - see

There also other methods for transferring files to the RetroPie (which is what I assume you're trying to do) - https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Transferring-Roms/

anthony.gandolfo · 15 Sept 2017, 04:32

@mitu yes it is formatted to fat32

anthony.gandolfo · 15 Sept 2017, 04:40

i've tried the sftp approach also. do both devices (pc and pi) need to be Ethernet wired or wifi? can one be wired and one not?

mitu · 15 Sept 2017, 04:42

@anthony-gandolfo said in USB troubles !:

i've tried the sftp approach also. do both devices (pc and pi) need to be Ethernet wired or wifi? can one be wired and one not?

As long as they're connected to the same network, it doesn't matter the connection type. Note that SSH is disabled by default on a default install of RetroPie, you need to enable it first in order to use SFTP for file transfer - https://retropie.org.uk/docs/SSH/

barrymossel · 15 Sept 2017, 08:35

@anthony-gandolfo said in USB troubles !:

I plug the USB into my PC, create a folder on it (named "retropie"), then I eject it, plug into Raspberry Pi, and then power it on. Note: my USB doesn't have a blinking light, so I just leave it in the Pi for a few minutes (all the way up to 10 mins). Then I take it out of the Pi and plug it into the PC. According to the booklet it should be putting some different folders onto the USB. well, it doesn't do it. I've done this numerous times, searched videos, and articles, and I have no way of solving this problem yet. what am I doing wrong? The videos I watch make it look so easy, but mine is being a headache. Please help

Shouldn't the folder name be "retropie-mount"? https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Running-ROMs-from-a-USB-drive

anthony.gandolfo · 15 Sept 2017, 11:49

@barrymossel I've tried it with the name retropie-mount also. this thing is hopeless

rbaker · 15 Sept 2017, 11:55

@anthony-gandolfo said in USB troubles !:

this thing is hopeless

No. You need to post exactly what you did in the exact order complete with what you named. It works perfectly. SSH is simpler and more efficient. USB requires less experience and takes longer in my experience.

anthony.gandolfo · 15 Sept 2017, 12:26

ok, got the kit in the mail. it came with the RPi 3 itself, power adapter, and all that jazz. I followed the little booklet that came with it to install the raspbian and retropie. everything went smooth up to this point. then when it came time to install roms I followed the booklet and used the USB route. I used a blank usb flashdrive that I have, created a new folder, named it both "retropie" and "retropie-mount" and plugged it into the pi for like 10 mins. then when I plug it back into pc it says the folder is empty. so I went the SSH route. enabled SSH on the pi, per youtube videos, downloaded winSCP, named the host retropie and username pi password raspberry...and it tells me host does not exist. both my pc and pi are wired to the same modem via Ethernet cables and it still nothing.

mitu · 15 Sept 2017, 12:33

@anthony-gandolfo
If the image you downloaded and wrote on the SD card is downloaded from the Raspbian site, then the host is not named retropie, but raspberrypi, so you'll not find in your network. Also, if the image you downloaded is the lastest Raspbian (based on Debian Stretch), then RetroPie is not yet supported on it.

I would suggest, since you're just starting fresh, to download a pre-installed image with RetroPie directly from the source - https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/releases/download/4.2/retropie-4.2-rpi2_rpi3.img.gz . Write it down on the SD card with Win32DiskImager then re-try again with either the SSH/SCP method or using the USB stick.

anthony.gandolfo · 15 Sept 2017, 12:35

@mitu dude...you may have just saved the day. I got it to connect via SSH, let me try and work with that and get back to you

herb_fargus · 15 Sept 2017, 12:36

If you installed it on top of Raspbian you need to enable the usbromservice from the setup script first before it will work. Otherwise just start with the image we provide on our site

mitu · 15 Sept 2017, 12:37

@anthony-gandolfo Sorry, I edited the post after the initial version and I added the bit about latest Raspbian not being compatible yet with Retropie.

I'd second @herb_fargus suggestion to start with the image provided by Retropie and it will be easier for your.

anthony.gandolfo · 15 Sept 2017, 13:01

@mitu I got WinSCP to recognize the host by naming it raspberrypi. but I'm not sure how to transfer the game systems onto the raspberry pi. I see where they are listed, but drag and drop doesn't seem to be working.

anthony.gandolfo · 15 Sept 2017, 13:10

yeah, how do I get the game systems to be seen on my Pi?

jonnykesh · 15 Sept 2017, 13:14

@anthony-gandolfo Systems won't show up until you have ROMs in the appropriate folders. If you have transferred ROMs you need to restart to get them to show up. Not to be rude but these are all very basic questions which are fully answered in the docs. You should do some reading first and if you hit a wall people will be happy to assist. Read this. https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/First-Installation#transferring-roms

anthony.gandolfo · 15 Sept 2017, 13:33

@jonnykesh I'm not offended. I am very new to this. I got a few roms downloaded and I think I may have figured it out.

jonnykesh · 15 Sept 2017, 13:34

@anthony-gandolfo I wasn't trying to be. It's just worth a bit of reading. It'll save you a few headaches and frustration. People here will definitely help you but most won't hold your hand.

glennlake · 15 Sept 2017, 23:21

@jonnykesh All so, once you get into the way RetroPie works, you will find a world of info and helps. All the folks have built up a rich database of helps and settings. I like to read thru post I have no direct interest in but end up learning something new and usefull.

StevieJoe360 · 16 Sept 2017, 02:48

@glennlake has spelt useful wrong