First install - What am I doing wrong? Here, my steps:

tdc42

Hello everybody,

Info: RPi 3 B
RetroPi 4.1.1
Bild from Imagine available here on RetroPie.org
NO Controller, only Keyboard
Windows

I've bought a SDCard which, in theory, has everything pre installed. As I NOOb I am, when i see it didn't work, I did the following bcs i saw in many tutorials:

1 - SDFormatter
Format Type: Quick
Format Size Adjustment: ON

2 - Downloaded the Image Writter

3 - Tried both ways as below:
3.1 - On the 1st try: Wrote the downloaded zip img file enterely into the selected drive.
3.2 - On the 2nd try (after repeating steps 1 and 2): Unziped the downloaded file and then, wrote the imagine onto the SDCard

4 - Inserted SD Card on the RPi

5 - Plugged Keyboard

6 - Plugged HDMI Cable

7 - Plugged Power

And..... Voilà! Nothing never happened.

What am I doing wrong, folks? :(

Thanks A LOT for your help!

herb_fargus

@tdc42 did you follow this guide?

https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/First-Installation

tdc42

Yep. Could not even finish it because nothing happened when I plugged the power and the HDMI....

Lejuhnd

@tdc42 When you say "nothing happened", what do you mean? HDMI output from the RPi to your TV and then plug your unit in and you're getting nothing but a black screen? That doesn't sound right, regardless of if you followed directions properly or not.

tdc42

@Lejuhnd Exactly this. I don't understand...
And I've formated and rewrote the img in every way I could think so far... :(

I tought that it happened because I didn't connect any controller, but I've read in other topics people doing this way with no big issues.

BuZz

@tdc42 bad sdcard/badly written image or bad psu.

What sdcard do you have and what PSU ? (output specs - eg 5v X amps)

herb_fargus

@tdc42 either you picked the wrong image, have a bad SD card or power supply, without explicit steps of what you did hard to know what you did wrong. Eg didn't specify if you extracted the image and with what software, if you checked the md5sum, what you wrote it with etc.

tdc42

Hello @herb_fargus & @BuZz , thanks for your fast reply. What I have is:

Raspberry Pi 3 Model B (64bit Quad Core, 1GB RAM)
8GB Sandisk Ultra Class 10 MicroSD (pre-imaged with NOOBS - which I formated after the first try #selfail)
Raspberry Pi 5.1V 2.5A International Power Supply
2M HDMI cable

Everything bought at The Pihut.

Formated the SDCard with SDFormatter + used the Win32Disk Imager.

Lejuhnd

@tdc42 And you're certain the lights are powering on for your pi when plugged in, and that the HDMI input has worked fine for other units? And you've also tested other HDMI cables?

dankcushions

@tdc42

3 - Tried both ways as below:
3.1 - On the 1st try: Wrote the downloaded zip img file enterely into the selected drive.
3.2 - On the 2nd try (after repeating steps 1 and 2): Unziped the downloaded file and then, wrote the imagine onto the SDCard

only 3.2 is correct.

tdc42

@Lejuhnd
Lights are on. HDMI cable worked other times. :(

quindo

I have the same problem.

Raspberry Pi 2
Retropi: retropie-4.1-rpi2_rpi3.img
Wrote microsd (16Gb) with Etcher (first try) and dd (second try).
Result: Pi2 lights shown (one green, one red), no lights on eth.

When I insert an OSMC image in the device, it works.

I did notice that the micro-sd card only has a ext4 partition, I was under the impression that the rpi needed a fat32 partition to boot?

tdc42

Ohh... So I need to insert an OSMC image, then?
In theory, RPi3 doesnt need it. Isn't it?

I still have no success here...

quindo

@tdc42

OSMC is not needed.
I just tested with OSMC to see if it was not a problem with the RPI.

Still no success here either.
I'm now trying older Retropie versions.

tdc42

it has anything to do with the fact I didn't plug any controller?

quindo

@tdc42
I don't think so (but I'm not expert).
I have a usb controller inserted and have the same problem.

quindo

I was able to get Version 4.0.2 working (https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/releases).

The problem might have been a faulty microsd card (two microsd cards destroyed by two rpi's in one day :-( ).

I recommend using etcher (https://etcher.io/) to burn the microsd card, it does a verify after writing the image.