Computer freeze at very first screen when trying to start Batocera at a HDD.

sancarajo

Hello to every one, as the subject say, i tryied to boot Batocera from an HDD at an old P4 of 3.2 GHZ with 1 GB of RAM (i tested Batocera from a booteable USB, but the frontend works too slow... and i suposed that it will work better running from an SATA or IDE drive than a USB 2.0... so supously it whould work better ). The procedure that i made was: Delete all the partitions of the drive -> burn the Batocera ISO with Etcher or Win32diskpartition (it made a 1.82 GB partition with batocera inside and the rest appear doesn't allocated, just as the instruction sayied -> then i connected the drive to the computer and, when i turn it on, it allways freeze at the that is checking the hard (the one that allow you to enter to the BIOS Settings ). I tryied with diferent HDD and computers... the result is allways the same. Please, could somebody helpme about how to solve it? Thanks in advance.

Victor

ushilives

sancarajo Are you using the 32bit or 64bit version? Also might be worth flashing Batocera again just in case the first time is corrupted. I've flashed Batocera on a USB Stick and i am using the internal hard drive for all my roms. My notebook is really slow too, won't play PSX or N64 games.

nadenislamarre

when it is slow, it is because of the gpu (graphical card), not well supported on linux
if that's a nvidia, try the nvidia drivers that you can enable since 5.19

sancarajo

nadenislamarre Thanks for the fast response... i'll try it.
Anyway, do you think that, at least, the game selection should work well at this kind of hardware? i mean, it's enough hardware, even i only want to emulate nes, snes, mame and sega games... so the emus will not be a problem.

sancarajo

nadenislamarre i working with a Lot of motherboards with vga output onboard...and batocera run very slow on most of them.. there Is some possibility to update drivers ?

sancarajo

ushilives Thanks for the response... indeed i'm using the 32bits iso (for old hw ), and i'm only traying to emulate nes and snes games.. Even, the games selection is very slow.

ushilives

sancarajo Them consoles you mentioned should work. My notebook uses an Atom 1.4ghz processor with 1gb ram. Not sure on GPU but i know it is pants. Scummvm works well too, i am just trying to figure out how to boot straight into a scummvm game because i just get taken straight to the scummvm launcher to add my own games

sancarajo

I got some news.. i tested the HDD with Batocera inside with a Core 2 Duo PC and it work... so... it seems that there is a incompatibility with the hardwares (two computers ) of the before trys.

sancarajo

sancarajo I was thinking about this issue with the HW and it sound a little wierd to me... because, as i told you before, two different HWs get freeze when the HDD had been checking by the BIOS (just after the RAM checking )... so the PC wasn't booting yet... i don't know because of what it freezed...Even, if i DELETE, it freeze before entering to the BIOS setting. Please, i don't really know what to do with that. Thanks in advance.

sancarajo

ushilives i guess the same... and i supose that the front-end animation should work well to at this hw.. i'll continue trying with the failure hw. Thanks

sirleirbag

Hi man, look, i have the same problem, im working with a wolfdale1333 and same thing. I tried 3 different disks, several times each, doesnt work, i tried from usb and it takes time, but works fine. Any of these disks works fine and i test all of them, with OS with the same HW and they work ok. Dont know where the issue is, but with batocera recently installed on any of these disks, the pc just wont even boot, it stucks at the drive detection and i must disconnect the disk even to enter setup, btw, i tried a loooooot of options on setup to see if passes the error... no luck from this side, any help will be very apreciated.

Dragu

@sirleirbag
It could be an Uefi issue, this horrible security feature is now in every new bios.
What you could try, first switch to Legacy on USB and switch off Uefi if possible
in your bios.
Now, concerning Hdd, there could be a problem, but I cannot give you garanties.
In general Uefi awaits as parttion table not Mbr, but Gpt. There is at my knowledge
only one tool to do this without formating disk, and for 0 costs latest Minitool
Partition Wizard. You can try it out, but this thematic becomes so complex, because
it also depends of the Cpu's.

sirleirbag

Dragu
Hi man, look, first, cant be UEFI issue, this motherboard is old, enough to not have any trace of UEFI.
I will try another disk initialization, but i guess that when you load up the batocera img with Etcher it deletes all partitions and initializes the disk as GPT... (Guess here, dont know exactly)
I'll be back with more info, i really want to troubleshoot this cos i'll be working with several arcades and all with really old HW.

Popipu

Hi, I'm having the very same problem. I have tried 2 different HDD and several ways to write the image and the computer always freezes in drive detection. My cpu is not so old, i3-540, and I've been trying the 64bits iso.

It you find a solution it would be very welcome.

Dragu

I think, the most easy for all that have a problem with (mostly) format of the harddisk, is to put the OS Batocera on an USB stick. I make it also like this. You win no time in putting Batocera/Recalbox/Retropie/Lassa.. on a HDD as system, instead of an USB stick.
But if you reserve enough place on the HDD (or all the place) you can very easy define it in ES System as your Data /Share repository. Upgrades also becomes more easy, swapping versions and trying out things without putting your roms and other stuff in danger.

sirleirbag

Dragu Yes, for myself i had to put batocera in a USB Stick and leave roms and media in HDD.
But for an Arcade that i'll not touch again, i mean, a final product that i use to rent in events, usb sticks end up giving me problems. I really want batocera to be my final system, but this particular issue along with the last blackscreens that im having with some hardware, are really frustrating. Im also trying Attract Mode with retropie, so far configs are a pain in the ***!