Read psx roms off SD card & USB

[WarPig4]

Hi there,

I've flashed my SD card with an image with some retro games. I've since decided that I'd like to add more psx games to the list via an external USB. I've scoured the net and forums for awhile now and below are the steps I've taken.

Steps taken:

1. I've setup auto mounting for the external usb via fstab file.
2. I have a 128GB USB FAT32 with a single folder called psx.
3. I've gone into RetroPie/roms/psx on the SD card and have placed a symbolic link pointing to the psx folder on the usb (full path: /media/usbdrive/psx). i.e. sudo ln -s /media/usbdrive/psx psx
4. Reboot RPI.
5. I cannot see a single test psx rom (.bin & .cue) from USB available on the list of other psx roms from the SD card.

Any ideas if I've missed anything? Trying to get to a single list in ES with both USB & SD card roms available on a single list.

Gear used:

• Raspberry pi 4
• Sandisk 32GB microSD
• External usb 128GB

[IanDaemon]

Isn't the symlink redirecting the location? ...or... Aren't you overwriting the directory's location in Linux with the symbolic link? Isn't that what a symbolic link does?

So...you're doing a "replace" and expecting an "append"?

[WarPig4]

You're right. It wasn't going to work. It only partially solved the problem. I've since moved the whole psx rom folder to an external USB which I've mounted and works now. Shame I couldnt get the 50/50 method to work.

Half blind is better than total :)

[Clyde]

@WarPig4 said in Read psx roms off SD card & USB:

Shame I couldnt get the 50/50 method to work.

Well, maybe you did give up too quickly. In case you want to give it another try …

1. I've setup auto mounting for the external usb via fstab file.

Please show us your fstab in a code block.

Does the auto-mount really work? Does the command mount list it after a reboot?

3. I've gone into RetroPie/roms/psx on the SD card and have placed a symbolic link pointing to the psx folder on the usb (full path: /media/usbdrive/psx). i.e. sudo ln -s /media/usbdrive/psx psx

What does ls -l /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/psx show?

[xtv]

@WarPig4
You could have a hybrid approach, having both sd card and usb stick roms available at the same time.
You just want the symlink inside ~/RetroPie/roms/psx
like ln -s /target/to/your/usb/psxroms ~/RetroPie/roms/psx/0_USB

[IanDaemon]

@xtv Right, that works for putting a folder one place and another folder in a second place, but (AFAIK) the OP wanted to put half of the folder in one place and the other half of the folder in a second place...with a symbolic link.

[xtv]

@IanDaemon Yeah, with my suggestion the second directory would appear as an entry in the games list, and its contents would be shown after opening it.
One solution could be splitting this into two subdirectories, like A-J and K-Z, one of them being a symlink to the USB drive.
If not happy with that, the solution is to use fusionfs, but that require further changes.

[IanDaemon]

@xtv said in Read psx roms off SD card & USB:

One solution could be splitting this into two subdirectories, like A-J and K-Z, one of them being a symlink to the USB drive.

That would be a simple visual solution to "hide" the separate-location structure. You could also split it on release year or franchise to help hide the fact.