Running roms off usb drive

mattrixk

@stevep This may be a silly question, but do you actually have any roms in the game folders? A System won't show up if there are no games in the folder.

stevep

Of course.I have over 300 games in various systems.

dankcushions

@stevep said in Running roms off usb drive:

Of course.I have over 300 games in various systems.

but have they been copied to your USB stick? try having a look via windows in the sub folders of the 'roms' folder.

stevep

I did check the sub folders and they are all empty. I had forgotten to mention that in my previous post.but why does ES tell me that "no systems found...check the path..etc....The USB stick was plugged in for a good 10 minutes. It should have copied something besides empty sub folders. As I mentioned before,when the stick is removed and I reboot ...all is back to normal..

backstander

@stevep

but why does ES tell me that "no systems found...check the path..etc....

Can you take a picture of this error and post it here? I don't think I've ever seen this error while only having a USB stick plugged in. Maybe it will give us an idea on how to best assist you.

obsidianspider

I found that when I tried to do it, nothing copied over aside from the base BIOS files. Not even the RetroPie "system" which essentially has all of those setup items in it. To get things working I manually copied the contents of the /RetroPie folder to the USB stick in the /retropiemount directory. I found that the script is copying the file structure over, but not the files inside the folders. Once I copied them over, then rebooted, I was good. I hope that helps.

lilbud

@AlexMurphy
alt text

felleg

@obsidianspider said in Running roms off usb drive:

I found that when I tried to do it, nothing copied over aside from the base BIOS files. Not even the RetroPie "system" which essentially has all of those setup items in it. To get things working I manually copied the contents of the /RetroPie folder to the USB stick in the /retropiemount directory. I found that the script is copying the file structure over, but not the files inside the folders. Once I copied them over, then rebooted, I was good. I hope that helps.

@stevep In case you're unfamiliar with linux, the following command should to this for you:
cp -r -v ~/RetroPie/ /media/usb/retropie-mount

cp: copy command
-r: option to copy files in folders (probably what was missing from the automatic script)
-v: verbose, shows you which files have been copied as the command is executed

A Former User

And now, a moment of silence for Alexander Murphy the 27th.

caver01

I guess I missed this thread. Been a week of silence. Who is going to tease me now that AM is gone?

I am curious about @stevep and the USB ROMs outcome. I have considered moving to USB myself for easier management, upgrades and. . . Is there a performance bump? But I often see threads like this that make me second guess my attempt.

dankcushions

@caver01 the performance improvements aren't noticeable really because the files we deal with are so small, and the pi has kind of crappy IO regardless.

there are other advantages though - https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Running-ROMs-from-a-USB-drive

felleg

@caver01 When it works correctly, the only downside I can think of is that it uses one of the USB ports (makes you need a USB hub to play 4 player games). Other than that, it's totally worth it in my opinion. I recommend using a USB like this one, which is small enough to always leave it on your pi: http://www.lexar.com/products/usb-flash-drives/Lexar-JumpDrive-S45-USB-3-flash-drive.html#SKU=LJDS45-128ABNL

tony_retrogamer

I can't no longer run roms off the usb storage either since doing a clean install of retropie 4.2. Nothing works. Even using this guys hack [link text]

(link url) and following these instructions [link text]

(link url) no longer work.

Emulation station was updated which broke a lot of things even my controllers were messed up I was able to fix them but the last two days made me want to trash my PI and just stay with playing games on my PC.

The only workaround was I had to get a bigger SD card and run the roms off of there, nothing else worked.