I'm a complete moron. Please help.

iangleave

Hi all,

I bought a Raspberry Pi 4 with Retropie already set up etc and when I connected to my TV (via HDMI), the game titles were covered on the left hand side by another box.

As you've probably figured, I am completely technically inept and thought it was because the screen resolution was wrong so I went to the video section in options and clicked 'force 1080p'.
Again, I am an idiot.

I now have no video output at all and can't access menus to change it back, nor can I access the SD card on my Windows laptop as it keeps telling me to format it.
I know it's working, as when the lights stop flashing on the front I can sync my wireless pad to it.

Please help as I have absolutely no idea how to get it working again.

Kind regards,
Ian

mitu

@iangleave said in I'm a complete moron. Please help.:

Please help as I have absolutely no idea how to get it working again.

Start here and install RetroPie anew.

iangleave

@mitu is that something that somebody with zero technical ability could do?

I've a very limited grasp of tech, hence why I just bought one that was meant yo be 'plug and play' ready off ebay.

If it's fairly basic then I suppose I could buy another SD card and give it a go? Just in case I bodge it and need the data from the initial one?

mitu

@mitu is that something that somebody with zero technical ability could do?

If you haven't used a computer before, then perhaps no.

I've a very limited grasp of tech, hence why I just bought one that was meant yo be 'plug and play' ready off ebay.

We don't support these kind of systems, since they're illegal - against the RetroPie's image license and packaging obviously non-licensed games.

iangleave

@mitu ah, no worries.
I figured that if I was buying something off ebay, it must be legit.

cdaters

@iangleave It really is not all that hard to get up and going from scratch, and the RetroPie documentation is pretty solid. For the rest, you have a lot of very knowledgeable people on here who can help. We all started the same way...

iangleave

@cdaters ah, thank you!
I had to get rid of all my old consoles when I moved in with my partner and this was our compromise 😂

I don't want to break any rules here though (I've already been warned that buying my pre-loaded RP4 from eBay is illegal) so what would you suggest? Where's the first place to start etc?

I just want to play my older stuff (Master System, SNES, Saturn, PS1 etc).

retropieuser555

@iangleave to start have a quick read here:-

https://retropie.org.uk/docs/First-Installation/

The raspberry pi imager is the best option for a simple install.

So from your PC (or Mac) download that program from raspberry pi's website, plug in your SD.

Run raspberry pi imager and you can select your SD card and an OS choose others and pick RetroPie.

From there, plug your SD card into the pi and turn it on. Then go back to the link above and follow from "Configure Controllers", and then have a read about transferring ROMs.

Once you've transferred those you're all set to play!

iangleave

@retropieuser555 that's absolutely brilliant - thank you so much!

It appears that the original installation was done in Linux for some reason, so at least this way I can have a fiddle around and try to learn how it all works :)

Thanks once again - I'll get right on it.