Is Retropie right for me? Are there alternatives?

ubernub

@BuZz I used the retropie image.

BuZz

it should automatically mount in /media/usb0 then (unless usbromservice has been removed/disabled).

ubernub

@BuZz usbromservice is enabled. I'm not seeing any way to even browse to it in retropie. In Kodi there's a /media/usb0 but nothing in it. This thing really isn't very user friendly for absolute beginners :(

ntfs-3g is installed and functional, too but I can't for the life of me remember how to mount a usb SSD in linux manually.

BuZz

please unplug then re-plug in the hd, and then post the output (via ssh) of

dmesg | tail

For using ssh - https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/ssh

ubernub

@BuZz Thanks for you help so far. This finally feels like making progress!

pi@retropie:~ $ dmesg | tail
[ 3794.934517] usb-storage 1-1.5:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[ 3794.934888] scsi host5: usb-storage 1-1.5:1.0
[ 3795.932399] scsi 5:0:0:0: Direct-Access Samsung Portable SSD T1 0 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
[ 3795.933759] sd 5:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
[ 3795.934070] sd 5:0:0:0: [sda] 976773168 512-byte logical blocks: (500 GB/466 GiB)
[ 3795.934583] sd 5:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
[ 3795.934603] sd 5:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 43 00 00 00
[ 3795.935578] sd 5:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 3795.938631] sda: sda1
[ 3795.943017] sd 5:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk

BuZz

you can mount that disk manually with sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt (which will mount it to the /mnt folder) and unmount it with sudo umount /mnt - however to see why usbromservice isn't mounting it, please post the output from cat /var/log/syslog

BuZz

Please use a site like pastebin.com for the large log

ubernub

@BuZz http://pastebin.com/jP5jqWSp

BuZz

for some reason usbmount doesn't like it - did it mount ok manually ?

what is the output of sudo parted /dev/sda print ?

ubernub

@BuZz

pi@retropie:~ $ sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
mount: unknown filesystem type 'exfat'
pi@retropie:~ $ sudo parted /dev/sda print
Model: Samsung Portable SSD T1 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 32.8kB 500GB 500GB primary boot

BuZz

It is not NTFS. It is exfat formatted

try this

sudo apt-get install exfat-fuse exfat-utils

and try the mount commands again.

or use FAT32/NTFS

ubernub

@BuZz That worked! I can mount it now, but how do I get it to see the roms on it?

BuZz

Did you read this https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Running-ROMs-from-a-USB-drive
?

ubernub

@BuZz Thank you! That fixed the rest of it. I had to change the filesystem to exfat-fuse instead of vfat but otherwise it worked perfectly. :)