Best Way To Carry Over Games (ROMs, ISOs, .zip) After Formatting SD Card

cromartian

I've run into some errors and bugs popping up due to unplugging the Pi a few times before letting it completely shut down. It happened a few times due to freezes or laggy downloads (I wasn't sure how to cancel and exit the download)

Anyways I now have some errors where certain ROMSs don't work and emulators fail to start (for example when I try to use advmame-94 with a rom I get a error dealing with a temporary file and no matter what I do after I can't switch the rom off of that emulator). Beyond that I just feel like I've tinkered too much with the software and I'd like to install a clean version of retropie before I put it in a bartop arcade.

I was wondering what would be the best way to carry over my games to a fresh install of retropie after I format my SD card? Would it just be to copy my ROMs folder and re-upload the games manually after formatting?

Thanks for the help!

Paradoxon1

Hey cromartian,

a possible way would be just to copy the whole rom folder with filezilla f.e. to your station. You can also make a snapshot if you just want to add more and more roms :).

cyperghost

This will link the folder roms from your HDD to the ROMs-directory in Retropie. That's a convinient and save way. For future updates you do not have to carry over your ROMS back to SD. Coz you've 2 storages now:

The SD-Card only as Retropie sytem (4GB are enough)
2 An USB-stick for ROMS storage with FAT32 format (easy copy from Windows to the device)

How to link?

cd /home/pi/RetroPie
mv roms roms_backup
ln -s /media/usb/roms roms

For more info read ahead here:
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/2582/can-my-usb-device-have-data-on-it-already/5