Not enough space + Cannot switch emulators (2 separate problems)

ChuckyP

If you have a keyboard you can press F4 to exit to the command line interface.

You will see the available space on the SD card in that screen. As well as a bunch of other useful info like temps and such.

If you card is indeed full you will either need to remove some ROMs or artwork, or invest in a larger SD card.

Clyde

Another option is to run your ROMs from a usb drive.

Collcroc123

@ChuckyP @Clyde All the games I have are on a USB, and there is no artwork on the SD card, that's what I'm trying to put on.
I think the problem is that my MicroSD is split into 2 drives named boot (G:) and USB Drive (H:). G is like 50mb and H is like 8gb, and Retropie is on G. Not sure how to fix this either though.

rbaker

@collcroc123 You can't put it in a Windows machine. The sd card has 2 partitions:

The boot partition, which is quite small. This is the partition you see if you insert the sd card into a Windows system.

The linux partition, which holds the rest of the SD card size and where the ROMs are stored. This partition is not accessible from a Windows system.

If you try to copy your ROMs on the card, you'll be copying the on the boot partition, where obviously there isn't enough space.

Collcroc123

Ok so I followed a tutorial to fix the partitioning or whatever and suddenly both of my problems have been fixed!
Here was the tutorial.
https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/1446/how-can-i-reformat-my-sd-card-to-use-it-normally-again

Collcroc123

So it WAS solved since I did that, it let me change the N64 Emulator and download images, but when I added some other emulators (Specifically Ports, PSP, MS DOS, Dreamcast, DS), now I can no longer change the N64 Emulator and all the images dissapeared. Not only that, I cannot save my game on PSP. I don't know what is causing it, if its one of the emulators or...
I think it may have to be for some reason Retropie only partions about 75mb for itself and leaves the other 7gb for nothing.

Collcroc123

So does that mean I can no longer properly use Retropie without a Linux machine? I used to be able to do all of this before on my Windows PC, so I don't seem to understand why it won't work anymore.
Also, the part of the MicroSD that Retropie is on says it has only used 21mb out of 56.8mb (when the whole card is about 8gb)

quicksilver

@collcroc123 how many games do you have on your card and from which systems? Did you put Dreamcast and psp games on? If so 8gb isn't going to be big enough. You are probably just running out of space and need a bigger card. You don't need Linux on your computer.

Collcroc123

@quicksilver Yes I do have all those, I guess I'll try removing some. So even though the roms are on a USB, they get installed onto the SD card? Is it possible to set it up so the games stay on the USB and I just have to keep it in all the time?

quicksilver

@collcroc123 https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Running-ROMs-from-a-USB-drive

Clyde

@collcroc123 You can check the occupancy of all mounted media with this command in Retropie's console. You get to the console by quitting Emulation Station without reboot or shutdown via the F1 menu or by just pressing F4.

df -h

Look for a line with "usb" in it, it should tell you the occupied percentage of the usb drive. If you don't understand the output, show it to us in a code block and we'll explain it to you.

@collcroc123 said in Not enough space + Cannot switch emulators (2 separate problems):

So even though the roms are on a USB, they get installed onto the SD card? Is it possible to set it up so the games stay on the USB and I just have to keep it in all the time?

They will if you used the method @quicksilver and I linked to to set up the drive. You can check if any roms or other data remained on the sd card by booting Retropie without the usb drive connected to the Pi. You can then browse the contents of /home/pi/Retropie/roms and its subfolders with the pre-installed file manager mcin the command console. You can find a list of its hotkeys here.

Collcroc123

@quicksilver So I followed the instructions with a fresh version of Retropie, and it seemed to work, though I couldn't run N64. I go to install optional stuff like SMW, PPSSPP, and some others. When I exited, none of the things I installed appeared. I went back to the Retropie menu but all the images were missing and wouldn't let me open any settings. I tried to restart the system, and it told me there was no system found! It just boots me to the command line.

quicksilver

@collcroc123 the systems don't appear in emulation station until you put ROMs the their folders

Not sure why it's booting you to the command line...