Access Files from windows

Crimson0087

Pi Model or other hardware: 4
Power Supply used: OEM power supply
RetroPie Version Used 4.7.1
Built From: Pre made SD Image on RetroPie website
USB Devices connected: Keyboard
Controller used: ps4 and 8bitdo

In the past when I messed something up in the config.txt and couldnt boot the retropie I could put the sd card into my windows pc and open the folder open the config.txt and edit and save it on windows and then it would boot. But now for some reason windows does not recognize the sd card and says I need to format it. Anyone know how to fix this? I have also seen youtube videos of people reading their files from a windows pc.

mitu

The sdcard has 2 partitions - a Windows compatible partition (where the 'config.txt' is stored) and a Linux one, which is not accessible. You get the 'format' message because of the 2nd parition, but you can ignore it (say no) and you should still be able to access the 1st partition, where the configuration file resides.

Clyde

@crimson0087 said in Access Files from windows:

But now for some reason windows does not recognize the sd card and says I need to format it.

Yeah, that's the Windows way … kill that what you don't understand. 🙄

That said, there are third-party tools to access Linux partitions in Windows, but I'd rather recommend to access any roms on that partition via network like it's described in the Docs should the need arise.

MyFartSoTart

@Clyde I know this is kinda an old thread but I need some help. I’m trying to access my retroarch.cfg file on windows, but when I plug in my SSD to my pc, it only shows a few files like roms, boot.txt, etc. Is a third party tool what I need to find retroarch.cfg?

Ashpool

@MyFartSoTart AFAIK the only tool(s) that really may be suitable are ExtFS and Linux File Systems for Windows by Paragon Software, and there are other (Free) utils out there which are suited for read-only access to ext-2/3/4 FS. In the end, and unless I missed something in recent times, accessing *nix filesystems are better done on *nix systems and to be avoided directly from windows (to much problems/hazards)... if you really want to do it under a windows system, best way IMHO is to use some kind of virtualization (VMWare Player, Virtualbox, maybe QEMU, whatever), or use a *nix live-media to boot from. In the end, using ssh/sftp over ssh (example apps: putty and filezilla) to connect from windows to the pi, is still the easiest solution (IMHO). (Edit: Oh boy, I am so used to ssh nowadays that I totally forgot about samba shares as another option. (the doc page linked by clyde reminded me about it %] )

Clyde

@MyFartSoTart As I said in my last post, I'd recommend to access RetroPie via network either using Samba or SSH. This way, you can access all of RetroPie's files instead of only those that Windows can read.

Besides that, for small tasks like only some config edits or file operations, you can just drop to RetroPies command shell by pressing F4 in Emulation Station, and then enter mc to start the text-based file manager Midnight Commander. You can use it to navigate RetroPie's file system, view text files by pressing F3 or edit them with F4. See here for a quick user guide to mc.

To go back to Emulation Station, exit mc with F10 to get back to the command shell, and then enter exit or press Ctrl-d.