RetroPi SD Copy?

bmouthboyo

Hi everyone,

I am looking to have retropi installed on 10 Pi's for use in a game making unit of work at my education workplace.

I have setup one and loading it with specific ROMs I think are significant in the forming of modern games which they are to experience and reflect upon.

I am looking for an easy way to simply duplicate the entire SD card with the OS and ROMS, setup etc all in one go opposed to doing it 10 times. I can also quickly reimage if a student messes something up.

Anyone know the best way?

Thanks

chubsta

On a Mac I use ApplePiBaker to just make an image, then I can write it to as many cards as I like. The only thing is you will have to set up the joystick on each machine but that is simple enough to do the first time the joystick is plugged in.

Clyde

On Linux (e.g Retropie) you could use dd:

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/284480/dd-write-to-multiple-disks

You can find the device names of the cards with the command lsblk.

simpleethat

On Windows with WIn32DiskImager:
Select your MicroSD card via the appropriate drive letter
Name you image (I can't remember if you need to include the extension or not, if it doesn't add it automatically you can manually do it later with no problems)
Click Read
wait for it to do it's thing.
This creates a file containing an exact image of the card (including empty space) so you won't be able to write it to smaller cards.

bastuktt

@simpleethat said in RetroPi SD Copy?:

On Windows with WIn32DiskImager:
Select your MicroSD card via the appropriate drive letter
Name you image (I can't remember if you need to include the extension or not, if it doesn't add it automatically you can manually do it later with no problems)
Click Read
wait for it to do it's thing.
This creates a file containing an exact image of the card (including empty space) so you won't be able to write it to smaller cards.

The card will be bootable after copying?

simpleethat

@bastuktt yep, it's an exact image of the card

compedhoallen

@bastuktt said in RetroPi SD Copy?:

@simpleethat said in RetroPi SD Copy?:

On Windows with WIn32DiskImager:
Select your MicroSD card via the appropriate drive letter
Name you image (I can't remember if you need to include the extension or not, if it doesn't add it automatically you can manually do it later with no problems)
Click Read
wait for it to do it's thing.
This creates a file containing an exact image of the card (including empty space) so you won't be able to write it to smaller cards.

The card will be bootable after copying?

Normally, boot is fine as long as the copy succeeds.The key is how to copy it.
https://www.uubyte.com/iso-editor.html
Generally, I like to use it,any drive that you use to copy it will work

bmouthboyo

Thanks for that guys.

Ideally I don't want to have to setup controllers on the 9 other retropie installations. Why doesn't it carry over the controller data when making an image?

mitu

@bmouthboyo If the controllers are identical, their configuration should have been saved and they should work. What controllers are you using ?

bmouthboyo

@mitu said in RetroPi SD Copy?:

een saved and they should work. What controllers are

Just a cheap USB SNES controller and a USB N64 one.

bmouthboyo

@simpleethat said in RetroPi SD Copy?:

@bastuktt yep, it's an exact image of the card

If I follow this method to creat an image, how would I then write this image to other SD cards?

Also I have got this all running on an 8GB SD card but will be using 32GB SD's for the other Pi's, is there an easy way to transfer my 8GB contents to a 32GB before making the image?

simpleethat

@bmouthboyo you would write it the same way you wrote the original image. You could use the 8gb card image and write that to the larger card. Then go to the Retropie menu in EmulationStation and select raspi-config and from that menu choose "expand file system" (if I remember correctly that's where it is and what it's called.)

bmouthboyo

@simpleethat said in RetroPi SD Copy?:

@bmouthboyo you would write it the same way you wrote the original image. You could use the 8gb card image and write that to the larger card. Then go to the Retropie menu in EmulationStation and select raspi-config and from that menu choose "expand file system" (if I remember correctly that's where it is and what it's called.)

Sorry for the late reply, finally getting around to this.

2 Questions:

How do I create an image from the current 8GB SD Card?
Do I then use that image on a 32GB card, load retropie and expand file system, then back on a PC make a new image from that 32gb SD card that I can use on all the other identical 32GB cards?

mitu

@bmouthboyo said in RetroPi SD Copy?:

How do I create an image from the current 8GB SD Card?

https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Updating-RetroPie/#making-a-backup-option-1

Do I then use that image on a 32GB card, load retropie and expand file system, then back on a PC make a new image from that 32gb SD card that I can use on all the other identical 32GB cards?

Yes, that's the gist of it.

dan18774

@mitu , could remove a direct link to a site that has roms in ''General Discussion and Gaming'' to the person i replied to warner8572574. Not sure if he knew and also delete this post please.

mitu

@dan18774 Can you be more specific ? Topic/post link maybe. You can also edit your post anytime and remove the links you've posted.

EDIT: nevermind, found it. Thanks for reporting.