You can install the desktop on the RetroPie image and other packages (including a browser) so you can operate directly from the Pi. See here.

Does the RAW backup then also occupy as much space as there is data on the SD card or is it then a 1:1 image of the entire SD card and its capacity?

If you look in the topic for the utility I pointed, there's an explanation on how much space does it take - it will initially create a full block copy of your sdcard, then shrink it to the actual size of used blocks. So you need to have enough space on your USB disc for a full sdcard copy.

Looks like the upstream libretro assets repository renamed them and the upgrade script just adds the new files, without removing the older ones. Maybe we should clear up the folder before the upgrade, to avoid this issue.

@hellothere You may also consider using rsync in conjunction with crontab.

@valabrax said in Which files/directories should I restore after doing a fresh image install?:

Looking at the backup methods on https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Updating-RetroPie/ I think the best one for me in this situation is to backup the bios, configs, and roms directories via the samba shares. However, assuming the update works perfectly, which of these directories should I copy back over to preserve my roms, save states/files, and configurations (like controller configs and core-level configs). I'm assuming just the roms and configs directory and that I should not copy bios back over to the new image, but I wanted to check and be sure.

as the docs says, you'll want to backup all 3 https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Updating-RetroPie/#backup-option-2

By installing from source and now doing a new image install, am I nuking my micro-sd card with writes? I have no idea how many writes an install from source does, but it took hours to finish.

it's not ideal but during development i do many days worth of rebuilds and my SD cards tend to last years before crapping out.

Looks like a good use case for git on LAN? You can tag or branch your config sets rolled out for other machines than yours. Later merge all your latest and greatest changes from your machine into the friends' branches from time to time. If something breaks you can easily go back in time.

@erbright said in Unable To Backup RetroPie Image:

Win32DiskImager - Doesn’t work. I create the image and try to mount it to make sure it works and Windows tells me it's corrupted. This happens over and over again.

This is all you needed to do, it did work, you just can't mount it under Windows.

@mitu found a way to acces the SD card with "Linux Reader" actualy copying fies and it takes ages but better than nothing.

You could use something like FSArchiver to backup the individual /boot and / partitions (excluding ROMS). dd could be used for individual partitions, from a separate Linux system (/ shouldn't be active when dd is run). FSArchiver is included in the live boot System Rescue image, you can use it to restore/backup from a separate PC, without installing Linux on your PC.

The main folders you want to back up are:

/home/pi/RetroPie (ROMs, BIOS files, splash screens) /opt/retropie/configs (configs for RetroArch, EmulationStation, also your scraped game library) /etc/emulationstation(custom themes as well as the systems ES has access to)

The RetroPie documentation has info on how to copy files. WinSCP or Filezilla are probably the easiest programs to use.

Copy those over from the 3B to the 4, and you should be fine. Note: after you flash the image onto your RPi4, you'll need to boot up with it for RetroPie to finish installing, then you can turn it off and start copying.

@SuperPitendo said in rpie-preservatives - Save file remote backup & synchronization tool:

@LiquidDivide I am glad that I could help. Thanks for pointing out the differences, especially the point with the non-retropie devices and that nothing has been done on the other script for 2 years. This should make your script much more interesting. Do you plan to include a save state selector as well?

Yes and no. If something works well, there's not really a need to keep changing and updating it. The other script does still work well and I had minimal issues with getting it working again, though I added a few changes from one of the other forks as well. I'm happy with it for now, but if this script gets more features, more robust, I'll happily switch.

@Clyde Wasn't aware of that tool. Cheers.

Thanks for your reply. I´ll give it a whirl :)

@treki said in Are the individual configurations also backed up?:

Where are the RetroPie settings (RetroPie setup) stored?

Most of them are in the /opt/retropie/configs folder, which is shown as \\retropie\configs over file shares.

Also I am downsizing by getting rid of computer emulators
Dos Box,Amiga,and Apple 2

You'll need to use something like pi-shrink to make the image be as large as its contents (vs. the full copy of the card).

https://github.com/Drewsif/PiShrink