Can I backup current emulator state - corrupted memory stick
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Hello all,
I've been a follower of these forums for years but have come unstuck on an issue with a memory stick. I'm hoping that I might be able to get some help here! :)
I have Retropie setup on a Raspberry Pi 5 running Raspbian Bookworm. I have the OS running off the SD card and all the roms are stored on a USB memory stick. I followed the guide in the Retropie docs for this so it automatically mounts at boot.
From my phone, I can access the Pi via SSH and FTP.
It's been mostly running OK for around a year - occasionally I have to reboot for EmulationStation to pick up the roms. I put that down to the Raspberry Pi 5 support still not being 100%.
Unfortunately, I have a problem with the memory stick. The Pi can find and load the roms, but it cannot write any data to it. This means that any time we quit a game, any progress is erased. It's no longer able to create emulator-based save states or the battery backed saves you would get on cartridges of yore.
I think the drive is toast - Kingston are going to replace it under warranty. The problem is, they need a serial number printed on the USB plug of the drive, which means unplugging it from the Pi.My kid has completed Yoshi's Island on the SNES and is halfway through trying to get the bonus levels. It's not a challenge I've ever had the stomach for! So if we quit to Emulation Station or the Pi is turned off, we'll lose all the progress.
Is there any way I can backup the current state of the drive, or the SNES emulator so we can restore it later on a new drive? Any temp files?
What I've tried so far:
I've tried to access the drive from ssh and FTP and it's not recognised at all. It doesn't show up. I believe the roms were stored in ~/RetroPie/roms, but exploring via FTP it shows a count of 0 files. Under SSH it shows nothing when I
ls -athe directory.With the Pi powered off, I unplugged the stick and tried it on my Macbook Pro - in the System Report tool (closest thing to Windows Device Manager), and it didn't even show up on the USB bus.
It's very strange, because once a game is running on the Pi it's absolutely fine - N64 and SNES are great. So the Pi itself must be able to read it, just not write to it. And other users can't see it via ftp or ssh, as if it's hidden or locked. And other devices can't see it at all.
Any help would be really appreciated! When I get another drive, I'll look into automatic backups to another server I think!
Thanks in advance
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You can try to change the save paths from the RetroArch menu and save the changes for the game or core with an override.
https://docs.libretro.com/guides/change-directories/# -
@sugarfree thanks, I wondered about that. However, does the emulator need to be reloaded before the config change takes effect?
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@CaptRobovski I believe so. By the way, save files are created when you choose to exit the emulator. Before that, they are stored in the
memory. -
@sugarfree sounds like I'm going to be out of luck then :(
Can't back up the current memory, as I don't think you can really do that unless you're a dab hand with forensic style tools (I'm certainly not!)
Would hot swapping the flash drive possibly work? As in, if I remove the drive and plug in a different one, would RetroArch write to it on exiting the emulator? Or is the mount restricted to a specific disk identifier?
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