running ROMS from external drive (exfat)

kombat

Hi all, noob post here,

I have searched and cant find a definitive answer....is it possible to run your roms from an external drive that is exfat formatted with retropie?

If i plug an exfat formatted drive into the pi with the 'retropie-mount' folder, it does populate it with the other folders and I am able to see it in the retropie web manager ( I can even upload a rom this way and when i plug the drive back into my computer, it has copied over) however the roms do not show up in the retropie menu.

Is there a guide anywhere of what i need to do in order to make this happen? Got everything working with FAT32 formatted drive, but I would prefer to use exfat if possible

Much thanks in advance for helping a newbie

EctoOne

It works for me. Try to re-enable the usbromservice from the retropie setup.

kombat

Well I just tried with a smaller size (64 gig) drive and it seems to work. I have tried two different 3 TB drives with no luck....does anybody know if there is a size limitation when it comes to using external exfat formatted drives?

EctoOne

Are you using an external power supply for your drive? Otherwise it might be that it doesn't get enough power through the pi.

kombat

@ectoone yeah both 3TB drive have an external power supply. Retropie must be recognizing the drive as I can see it mounted in the web interface for retropie manager and I am able to add roms that way, they just dont show up when I reboot

EctoOne

@kombat do you have gamelist.xml files either in your rom folder or wherever emulationstation puts them by default (can't remember nor check right now what the default path is)? If not, you might have set emulationstation to parse gamelist only.
Otherwise I have no other idea of what's going on. I'm only using a 128 GB stick, not a drive.

kombat

@ectoone I think I have narrowed it down to a size issue. 500 gig and 1TB drives both work, but the 3TB does not. Testing out a 2TB tonight.....

HurricaneFan

Is it possible you need different drivers for it?

https://gwynmorfey.com/notes/exfat-vfat-external-hard-disks-and-the-raspberry-pi

kombat

@hurricanefan I've been able to make exfat work with drives up to 2TB without a power supply, but 3TB with a power supply don't work so I think its a size limitation perhaps

isrnick

I have an 4TB drive without external power supply, formatted as NTFS, and the ROMS show up in the retropie menu correctly.

The only issue I see is that it doesn't show the ROMS when I first power up retropie, I always need to restart ES once for the ROMS to be loaded, but I don't if that is normal or not.

mitu

@isrnick said in running ROMS from external drive (exfat):

The only issue I see is that it doesn't show the ROMS when I first power up retropie, I always need to restart ES once for the ROMS to be loaded, but I don't if that is normal or not.

4TB is a large drive, I think the mount operation - on start - takes a long time and it's not complete when ES starts up.

kombat

@isrnick interesting I am going to explore down this path thanks isrnick. May I ask what method you use to restart emulationstation. Command line?

kombat

@mitu I am able to see the drive in web manager and able to upload roms successfully if that counts for anything. They just never show up in the menu. Also have confirmed this is the case for both fat and exfat. Have tried with 2 different drives as well to confirm its not the drive causing the issue.

herb_fargus

@kombat said in running ROMS from external drive (exfat):

They just never show up in the menu

Restart es, check parse gamelist settings.

isrnick

@mitu said in running ROMS from external drive (exfat):

4TB is a large drive, I think the mount operation - on start - takes a long time and it's not complete when ES starts up.

That certainly would explain it, thanks.

@kombat said in running ROMS from external drive (exfat):

@isrnick interesting I am going to explore down this path thanks isrnick. May I ask what method you use to restart emulationstation. Command line?

No, I just press Start and go to Quit > Restart Emulationstation.

kombat

No, I just press Start and go to Quit > Restart Emulationstation.

This worked! Thanks and thanks all for your suggestions and help

EctoOne

@hurricanefan said in running ROMS from external drive (exfat):

Is it possible you need different drivers for it?

https://gwynmorfey.com/notes/exfat-vfat-external-hard-disks-and-the-raspberry-pi

This helped me at least to mount my stick under Raspbian Stretch. Now i can start using ScummVM 2.0.0 and don't have to wait for Retropie to update.

isrnick

@mitu said in running ROMS from external drive (exfat):

4TB is a large drive, I think the mount operation - on start - takes a long time and it's not complete when ES starts up.

If that is the case, is there some way to delay ES' start up during boot? It would take longer for the system to load completely on boot but I have to restart ES every time anyway.

mitu

@isrnick Modify the autostart script (from /opt/retropie/supplementary/ .. somewhere) and add a sleep X (X=nr. of seconds to wait) statement before the line that starts emulationstation. Adjust X with the number of seconds necessary - you might have to give it a few tests to find the right interval.

isrnick

@mitu Thank you, I'll do that.