Wrote RetroPie image to SD card - TV shows "no signal"
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Hello,
Looking very forward to using RetroPie and reliving some of my childhood experiences.
With that said, I like to think I'm relatively computer savvy, but I'm stuck in a little bit of a slump. I consulted https://retropie.org.uk/docs/ for help, but was unable to find what I was looking for.
I have a Raspberry Pi 4, so I downloaded the absolute newest version of RetroPie, unzipped it with 7-zip, and I used the program Win32DiskImager to write the img file to the SD card. Then I transferred the SD card to the Raspberry Pi - no signal on the TV. I tried wiggling/moving the HDMI to rule out if it is an issue with the cord, to no avail.
From there, I put the SD card back into my main PC, and realized there SD card is completely empty. So this time I tried using the program Etcher (instead of Win32DiskImager, just trying to rule out every possibility) but that program did not write anything to my SD card either. I checked the SD card right after, and noticed the capacity of the card was only 255 MB. It showed 32 GB before.
I have a couple questions:
- is there a reason I cannot seem to write to the SD card? (since it says the drive is empty)
- if there is no SD card in the unit, does the raspberry pi boot to any screen? even just a rasberry pi logo or something. reason i ask is because i want to rule out the HDMI cord being the issue for the "no signal" problem
FYI, the SD card did have Rasbian on it before. My unit booted to that without any problems (although I did have to mess around with the HDMI cord to get it to show on my screen). But I wiped the SD card so I could install RetroPie.
Thank you,
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@pojr said in Wrote RetroPie image to SD card - TV shows "no signal":
From there, I put the SD card back into my main PC, and realized there SD card is completely empty. So this time I tried using the program Etcher (instead of Win32DiskImager, just trying to rule out every possibility) but that program did not write anything to my SD card either. I checked the SD card right after, and noticed the capacity of the card was only 255 MB. It showed 32 GB before.
It's normal, what you're seeing is just the
bootpartition, Windows cannot see/read the Linux partition that spans the rest of the sdcard (where RetroPie resides).As for your original issue - do you get no signal at all, not even the initial boot screen ?
Make sure you use the HDMI port that's next to the USB-C power input and that your TV's input source is properly configured. -
@mitu said in Wrote RetroPie image to SD card - TV shows "no signal":
@pojr said in Wrote RetroPie image to SD card - TV shows "no signal":
From there, I put the SD card back into my main PC, and realized there SD card is completely empty. So this time I tried using the program Etcher (instead of Win32DiskImager, just trying to rule out every possibility) but that program did not write anything to my SD card either. I checked the SD card right after, and noticed the capacity of the card was only 255 MB. It showed 32 GB before.
It's normal, what you're seeing is just the
bootpartition, Windows cannot see/read the Linux partition that spans the rest of the sdcard (where RetroPie resides).As for your original issue - do you get no signal at all, not even the initial boot screen ?
Make sure you use the HDMI port that's next to the USB-C power input and that your TV's input source is properly configured.oh interesting, didn't know windows couldnt see it - but good to know!
i was using port 0 (the one closest to the usb-c port) and still wasn't getting a signal from the tv. it might be a bad hdmi cord. even when i had rasbian on it, i had to wiggle it around a lot to get it working. i have another hdmi cord on the way.
im just surprised if it is the hdmi cord, because i bought the canakit variation that comes with all the essential parts you need.
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Update
I'm actually getting frustrated now, because I just noticed that when I power my raspberry pi on, The keyboard and mouse do not light up at all. And still, nothing shows up on the TV screen except "no signal".
I tried completely wiping the SD card by going into the command prompt. It was no longer saying that the capacity was 255 MB. So I tried to burn the image file onto the SD card. It acted like it went through. So I plugged the SD card into my raspberry pi...still does not power on. Still no signal, mouse and keyboard still do not light up, I still cannot get this to work. At this point, I think I have a defective device. Why won't this work?
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@pojr I had an incredibly frustrating time getting Retropie and any other pi4 OS to display on my tv. I managed to figure it out on my end, but the solution may not be the same for you
First, the no signal problem. I had this same issue. You should check the native resolution of the monitor or tv you're using. Mine had a weirdo native res of 1360 x 768. I tried different hdmi cables, no luck. I had to search the docs on the official pi site and manually find the right hdmi group and mode and enter them into the config file manually (on my computer) as well. For me that fully solved the no signal problem and gave me correct video output, after many hours of aggravation.
Alternatively, you can try setting hdmi safe mode and commenting out the 3d video driver line in the config, that might get you going, but you'll be in a low res mode and some things won't work. There's also an option to increase power to the hdmi ports you might need if going this route. If you can get it started this way you can edit the config here. Please note I did this before finding my solution and then tried to change the resolution in retropie's settings, but that didn't work at all.
This brings us to your second problem. The SD card shouldn't be empty when you insert it into your computer. You should see the partition that contains the config file among several other os related files. You won't see your roms and the retropie folders as stated earlier, but you SHOULD see the config files. Are you not even getting those?
Another alternative would be to hook it up to another tv or monitor that you know uses a native res of 1080p, it might work well enough to boot and if so you can edit the config file on the pi itself.
Good luck, hope this helps.
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Thank you so much! I ended up finding a solution, I edited the config file to force HDMI. finally I have a reliable connection to the TV.
Thank you so much
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@pojr Cool, glad you got it! I meant to mention that one as well as I has tried it, but it didn't fix
the issue for me.
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