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    [Tutorial] New way to backup your retro pie

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Ideas and Development
    sd card copying
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    • UnknownU
      Unknown
      last edited by

      I found a simpler way to back up all your entire retro pie image.

      WHAT YOU NEED

      1. One raspberry pi (Any model with the raspbien desktop interface)
      2. Two micro SD card to USB adapters
      3. One empty micro SD card(with enough capacity for your image)
      4. Your micro SD card from your retro pie image
      5. A computer mouse.

      STEP 1
      Plug your SD cards into the adapters, and power up your pi.
      STEP 2
      Go to the main menu and open up the SD card copier in accessories.
      STEP 3
      Select the new partitions box.
      STEP 4
      Copy from the adapter your SD card(the one with your image) to the blank SD card.(This will take a while)
      STEP 5
      After the copy is complete power your pi off, and remove the SD cards.

      Were done! You now have a backup SD card.

      You can't beat the classics(unless you copy them).

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • IanDaemonI
        IanDaemon
        last edited by

        The way this is written the process requires four SD cards.

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        • UnknownU
          Unknown
          last edited by

          @IanDaemon I do not understand what you mean. Can you explain?

          You can't beat the classics(unless you copy them).

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • mituM
            mitu Global Moderator
            last edited by

            .. and maybe only 1 sdcard adapter, since your original sdcard (that you plug into your Pi) can fit into the sdcard slot.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • UnknownU
              Unknown
              last edited by Unknown

              @mitu Would that be running Raspbien from USB? because raspbien lite does not have a SD card copier application, so I don't think that you could do it running the retro pie image as of now.

              You can't beat the classics(unless you copy them).

              mituM 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • mituM
                mitu Global Moderator @Unknown
                last edited by

                @Unknown Well, choosing between installing the desktop (and the SD card copier) I think it's easier than having 2 sdcard adapters.

                ClydeC 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • ClydeC
                  Clyde
                  last edited by Clyde

                  @Unknown Well, you could use dd to copy an sd card from Retropie's command line.

                  1. Enter blkid to see a list of all connected block devices and their partitions. Example:
                  /dev/mmcblk0p1: SEC_TYPE="msdos" LABEL_FATBOOT="boot" LABEL="boot" UUID="C367-3F28" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="e22bcd10-01"
                  /dev/mmcblk0p2: LABEL="retropie" UUID="8988cf8f-d459-476f-9a4a-16c56702dc40" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="e22bcd10-02"
                  /dev/sda1: LABEL="retropie-data" UUID="9463aedb-2ed2-4946-98a6-ab9c63966f8a" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="2c31bca2-b1f4-4466-ab20-3a347852ba2c"
                  

                  Here, the card in the internal sd slot of my Pi 4 is mmcblk0, and p1 and p2 are its partitions. sda is an usb drive with one partition. A second usb drive would likely become sdb and so on.

                  1. Clone one block device (let's say sda) onto another (sdb):
                  sudo dd status=progress bs=4m if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb
                  

                  sudo is needed for root access rights to the raw devices.
                  status=progress will display the ongoing progress.
                  bs = block size (4 MB for more speed)
                  if = input file (or block device, since all devices in Linux are files)
                  of = output file

                  Be very careful with the device names, though. Like most Linux commands, dd will do whatever you tell it to without warning or remorse. So if you're careless, you might overwrite your original with the backup.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • ClydeC
                    Clyde @mitu
                    last edited by

                    @mitu said in [Tutorial] New way to backup your retro pie:

                    @Unknown Well, choosing between installing the desktop (and the SD card copier) I think it's easier than having 2 sdcard adapters.

                    But then you'd clone the system card from within the running system, right? I remember this being discouraged in many backup guides, but I don't know how much of a problem this really is.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • UnknownU
                      Unknown
                      last edited by

                      @Clyde @mitu Seems that there are several more ways mentioned here to backup your retropie image. Maybe this should be added to the Docs.

                      You can't beat the classics(unless you copy them).

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • UnknownU
                        Unknown
                        last edited by

                        @mitu The desktop comes with the SD card copier installed.

                        You can't beat the classics(unless you copy them).

                        mituM 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • mituM
                          mitu Global Moderator @Unknown
                          last edited by

                          @Unknown said in [Tutorial] New way to backup your retro pie:

                          @mitu The desktop comes with the SD card copier installed.

                          Sure, but we don't use the Raspbian Desktop image and I assume most users don't install the desktop when using RetroPie.

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                          • UnknownU
                            Unknown
                            last edited by

                            @mitu I meant that you would copy it with another raspberry pi, not the one that you use for your retropie system. I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear.

                            You can't beat the classics(unless you copy them).

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • UnknownU
                              Unknown
                              last edited by

                              @mitu I see you have moved this, could you explain what that means?

                              You can't beat the classics(unless you copy them).

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • mituM
                                mitu Global Moderator
                                last edited by

                                The Ideas and development category is more appropriate for this topic.

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • windgW
                                  windg
                                  last edited by windg

                                  Is a big plus to not have the roms in the sd card but to an external disk. i am using this approach one year now and i have to back up only the retroarch.cfg and the gamepad.cfg files.

                                  My English isn't at a good level.

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • UnknownU
                                    Unknown
                                    last edited by

                                    @windg The backup would still run roms off your drive.

                                    You can't beat the classics(unless you copy them).

                                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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