Adding Roms to USB key Batocerra is on

rodchan

Hi,

Just installed Batocera on a 32GB USB stick, and I wanted to load roms on it. When I try to load roms on the stick, it says that I dont have enough free space. When I network/unc into the system, it says the 'share' folder is only 100MB.

There is another partition when I plug it into a Windows machine that shows the rest of the drive, but I cant access it.

Am I missing something?

Thanks

zhidd

you can check in the system information. i installed mine on a 16gb, when i checked the internal storage is 0/12 GB. so i have 12GB space for my roms. then i put roms thru network "share" folder. execute "update game list" in the menu after you finished putting roms.

fernandojs

zhidd I have the same problem than rodchan. When I check internal storage it says N/A and then in the file manager I only get 128 mb, when I'm using a 8gb pendrive, which doesn't make any sense.

RupeeClock

You can boot into batocera.linux and then add ROMs and media whilst in Linux.

On the main EmulationStation screen, press F1 to open a file explorer of sorts.
From there you should be able to navigate any mounted drives Linux has discovered, including the USB flash drive itself and any storage drives in the PC.

You can also enable a dual-pane mode for this file explorer, so you can conveniently put batocera.linux's share folder in one pane, whilst you explore your PC's storage drives in the other, then do copy-paste operations.

rodchan

IM trying to add the games via network share, and the share folder only shows 100MB available 🙁. Not sure if im not doing something right.

rodchan

To add, i went into the file explorer in Batocera, and it looks the same. 100MB available in the share folder.

Kossay

Hi, the problem is that ur only seeing by default the OS partition where batocera is, you have to resize the "share" partition to the entire rest of the disk, usb,sd or whatever ur using has storage. Here's a simple video to show u: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1ib2HNytqw&t=337s

hope it helps
btw; sorry for my english, im not native speaker

Legu

If I‘m right after installing the image on a stick/sd card (I used Etcher for this) the 2nd partition is is automatically created when Batocera is run 1st time. It should have the size of the remaining space on the stick. The 2nd partition is an ext4 file system which cannot be access on Windows except you install a software from Paragon Software (I did, 1st 10 days free, after this period it costs around 20€) which makes managing files very easy (you can use the Windows Explorer as usual).
The other way to access the drive is as described above (F1 within emulation station) or via your local network (for 5.22 beta2 this doesn‘t work for me currently since there is a network connectivity issue in this version) - And you can install a live Linux like Knoppix what can be installed on a (another than Batocera is installed) stick, too. But this is more for experts because you need to remount all partitions manually to get write access on it.

If you need to resize the 2nd partition manually you can use the Linux partition manager gparted (On Windows I have no idea what software you could use there since it is an ext4 filesystem which the default disk manager isn’t supporting)

retrorimmer

The problem is that Batocera is a Linux based OS so uses ext4 partition for the Share drive. I prefer FAT32 partitions as they are much more widely supported and easy to access for file transfers. When Batocera is frshly written to a USB stick, a ext4 linux partition is automatically created for the shared drive (roms,settings,etc..). I have tried converting this partition to FAT32 but Batocera always wants to find an ext4 partition if that parition is on the same USB stick it was booted from. My conclusion is that booting Batocera from a USB stick will not allow any other partition apart from ext4 for the shared drive. Only way around this to use FAT32 is by Plugging in an extra USB stick and using that for roms,settings,etc.. This is a waste of USB ports and would be much better and easy for backup purposes if Batocera allowed FAT32 partitions as a shared drive on the same USB stick it was booted from. Messing around using 3rd party utilities to resize partitions is complicated and can result in a non bootable drive. If the devs could add FAT32 support it would make it alot easier for Windows users who do not have any idea about the linux file system, that is 90% of Windows users 🙂

retrorimmer

Just to add to my previous post. The booting squashed file system image is a really great idea and the devs have done a great job of fine tuning and making Batocera boot extremely fast. I've just downloaded the 5.22 image and was amazed that it booted from a USB stick in less than 5 secs on my Lenovo M73 ThinkCenter!!

So now I have a 32GB USB stick with a 3GB Batocera boot partition and a 28GB ext4 share partiton. My only gripe is that I cannot just plug the USB stick into my Windows box and copy over the roms as Windows is still too dumb to read Linux partitions and asks if I would like to format the drive to something it prefers 😮 I have to jump for hoops to either boot up another Linux box or use a 3rd party linux reader which is overkill to simply copy some rom files. Converting the ext4 share partition to FAT32 does not work either as Batocera won't see the partition as a shared drive from the same USB drive it booted from. I think the settings can only be saved onto an ext4 partition and a FAT32 partition needs to be mapped through a share which means messing around in the console editing scripts. Would be simpler to just add support for a FAT32 partition after first booting the system.

joinski

retrorimmer
FAT32 has one big disadvantage:
It only supports file-sizes of max. 2GB
So if you want to play PS2 games, you can not use a FAT32 drive, because PS2-Isos can have a file size of 8GB
Even Gamecube and Wii games are mostly above 2GB size.

retrorimmer

joinski I think you mean FAT which has a maximum partition and drive size of 2GB.
FAT32 supports upto 4GB file sizes, so large rom files is not a problem unless of course you have an 8GB rom file!
I've didn't even think rom files exceeded the size of a DVD anyway but I guess there are a few floating around.

FAT32 is very common file system and is supported more by many devices, don't you think it is much simpler to plug a FAT32 usb stick into your box and copy files over directly that all the hassle of setting up a shared network drive ?
Most users have no idea about Samba and network shares, but do understand simple file copying to/from a usb stick. Ext4 is an advanced file system and plugging a USB formated ext4 drive into windows would cause alot of people to think the usb stick is corrupted by the stupid message Windows presents them with and no indication whatsoever what filesystem is on the drive.

The Batocera boot image uses a FAT32 partition to boot from, so why does it not support a FAT32 partition for the share drive that it creates when first booted and setup ? Why is an Ext4 partition created that does not allow the drive to be plugged into a Windows box to copy roms over, without the Windows message insisting the drive is corrupt and needs formatting.

joinski

retrorimmer

You're right. I meant 4GB, which is still to small for PS2 isos for example.
And if you want to watch large movie .mkv-files you also have a problem with FAT32.
But if you don't want to use larger files than 4GB, i would also prefer FAT32.

I think the reason for Ext4 is, that it is more robust than FAT32. And maybe it has better performance? (i'm not sure).

There is another alternative to using linux or the samba and network share for file transfers:
You could plug in another USB-Drive and in ES Menu press F1 for file explorer and then transfer the games.

retrorimmer

joinski Yes, it is not for everyone but I use very small ROM files and my media files are never usually larger than 4GB anyway. You are right about using another USB-Drive and I have used this method myself, I keep a smal 4GB usb disk just for the Batocera boot image and then plug a larger 64GB USB-Disk for ROMS, Media files etc..
Just that I am limited by the USB sockets that I have and 3 are taken up by Controllers and Bluetooth dongles for my mouse and keyboard 😮 Now thinking of just using the Batocera boot USB disk to boot the system and then using an internal hdd/ssd to store everything. That way I can easily update the boot image on the USB disk without screwing up the hdd/ssd in the process.

Reason I prefer FAT32 over any other filesystem is the simplicity and direct access of files without the file access permissions layer of file systems suchs as NTFS/Ext4. I am not saying the secure filesystems are not as reliable or robust, just that the extra security layer and journaling is not really needed in an emulation or media box and just creates all sorts of access permission issues if the security attributes are not correctly updated when a file is copied or created.