Batocera partition structure, please explain.

SSThing

I had Batocera installed (by Etcher) onto a brand new 480gb internal sata ssd. Everything was working as expected.

However.

Out of curiosity, I looked at the whole device in the Windows partition manager. This showed a 5.99gb drive and the rest of the ssd was showing as unallocated. I decided to format this space to use as storage for my roms.

Unfortunately, after doing this ALL of my roms (in the roms folder), all my saves, all my boxes/artworks etc were gone. Batocera still runs but is definitely slower.

Can anyone please explain why this has happened?

joinski

SSThing

You did something, you should not have done.
Read the wiki to understand the structure of Batocera.
At default, the user data partition (storage device for roms/bios/saves/artworks etc.) is in ext4 file format, which windows can not access. If you format the drive under windows, you destroy all data on it.

eric4gth

SSThing

You were fooled by Windows. The partition to store roms, saves… is created by Batocera using Linux partition format. Windows will not recognize it unless proper driver for btrfs or ext4 is installed. Besides, the partition you created in Windows will not be used by Batocera.

SSThing

Thank you both.

I found the information in the Wiki shortly after posting.

Ultimately, what I had wanted to do is create two equal partitions of 240gb on the ssd. One for Batocera (let’s call it B drive) and the other for my Windows system backups (Z drive).

However, even if I successfully create B and Z drives (and make them active) when I use Etcher to flash Batocera, it only sees the Kingston as a whole drive and completely wipes/formats everything. I cannot see how to install just onto the B drive.

Is this even possible, perhaps using a different method/utility?

joinski

SSThing

For backups (Windows system backups (Z drive) i would use a sperate dedicated drive instead the one, which you use for Batocera.