Help!! Accidentally dragged a random directory into another and now its all broken

cyanxx

Thanks! Just as soon as I work out to undo what mount this SD card (installing some homebrew package now...) I'll move it back and hopefully that will work.

Does this mean there should be no /opt/pi/ directory at all ?

dankcushions

@cyanxx said in Help!! Accidentally dragged a random directory into another and now its all broken:

Does this mean there should be no /opt/pi/ directory at all ?

not on official RetroPie, certainly.

cyanxx

@dankcushions Great, good to know.

(Sorry btw, had no idea third-party images for Retropie were even a thing)

cyanxx

@dankcushions I know this is not a retropie question... but I have mounted the SD card on my mac and can view it at last. But I cannot access the contents of the /home/pi/ directory as its protected. Do you know if there is a way I can login somehow or am I screwed? No worries if you dont know, just thought I'd ask.

cyanxx

Ok, managed to access the pi directory via another raspberry pi.... copied it all back into the right places. Still a kernel panic though and it wont boot
Guess it could be starting from scratch after all... :(

Clyde

My sympathies and good luck with that. And don't forget to ⚠️backup⚠️ your system after you've set up everything, and in regular intervals after that.

cyanxx

@Clyde appreciated. Managed to connect the SD card to another raspberry pi so copying all the roms and configs over to a portable HD now. Then going to reflash it with base retropie and re set it all up again 🤞

Is there a recommended way to back up? Can't think how to do it without just dragging a bunch of stuff over SFTP (what screwed me in the first place)

mitu

@cyanxx https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Updating-RetroPie/#making-a-backup. And don't use the root account for transferring ROMs.

cyanxx

@mitu said in Help!! Accidentally dragged a random directory into another and now its all broken:

https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Updating-RetroPie/#making-a-backup

Thanks. So connect via SFTP using the pi account yes? What is the pitfall in using root incidentally?

mitu

@cyanxx said in Help!! Accidentally dragged a random directory into another and now its all broken:

What is the pitfall in using root incidentally?

Well, for starters you wouldn't have been able to copy your /home/pi to /opt, since the permissions on /opt would have prevented it.
As a rule, you don't use an administrative account for day to day operations of your system. You don't need it and you can accidentally break your system by removing important files or changing permissions on system files.

Use root only when are explicitly doing system configuration or update and, even then, prefer the sudo command instead of logging in directly as root.

cyanxx

@mitu I was actually logged in as pi via Filezilla when it happened (dont have root). Thats all the company I bought it off provided, but it worked everywhere so I didn't chase it further. Good advice though, I understand the merits.

So if I want to update config files in /opt/retropie/configs/ (that path from memory sorry) I was just copying them off via SFTP - updating on my mac and then copying back. Is that how you would do it?

mitu

@cyanxx You don't need SFTP for that, you can access the RetroPie file shares (ROM folders/configs) from your macOS system - see https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Transferring-Roms/#samba-shares. That should be the preferred method.

cyanxx

@mitu ah sweet. Perfect. I did try that before but couldn't get it to work. Hopefully now I'm on the official image it'll work properly. Thanks!

cyanxx

@mitu @dankcushions I'm saving the contents of

/home/pi/retropie/roms/
/opt/retropie/configs/

Can you think of any other directories I should save before I wipe the SD?

mitu

The BIOS folder might be useful.

montelcow

@cyanxx
My sd card
for retropie is asking for a password. Help

mitu

@montelcow Please open a separate topic instead of barging in on existing ones. Provide the information requested in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first.

montelcow

Hello my sd card i have is asking for a password..

cyanxx

@montelcow sorry, I had to use another raspberry pi in order to access the protected directories. Couldn't work out how to do it via mac. Assuming you are meaning you are trying to access the sd card not from the retropie. But as mitu says, perhaps if you start a topic on it someone will help.

Clyde

@cyanxx said in Help!! Accidentally dragged a random directory into another and now its all broken:

Managed to connect the SD card to another raspberry pi so copying all the roms and configs over to a portable HD now.

Isn't that a viable way for making backups, too? If you run a desktop Linux system like Raspberry Pi OS (formerly known as Raspbian) and then connect your RetroPie sd card to that system, you could comfortably copy anything that you need to your backup drive. In this scenario, that drive should be formatted with a Linux file system like ext4, so that the file ownerships and permissions are backed up correctly.

There are many graphical or command line backup applications available for Linux that could help to manage and semi-automate the backups. Many of those programs also work over SSH or SFTP, so a network solution shouldn't be much harder to setup.

As an example, in my first RetroPie years I made my backups by connecting my sd card to my desktop Linux PC using a usb card reader, until I switched to network backups with rsync via SSH roughly 1-1½ years ago.

Apart from backups, am using Unison to synchronise RetroPie settings and roms between the Pi 4 in my arcade cabinet, my desktop PC, and my Laptop. They all run on Linux, though, and unfortunately, Unison isn't available for MacOS. So it would only be useful on your second Pi (or the first one by switching the system card).

Whatever you do your backups with, the important thing is to make the process as easiy and convenient as possible, so that you actually make them regularly. 😉