Moving games to External Hard Drive

[MrBoydee]

Hi just got a mister and have managed to get most things working. I just want to play my games off an external hard drive instead of the SD card.

I found this topic on the forums multiple times and tried every permutation with no luck.

I bought a My Passport 5TB Black
SKU: WDBPKJ0050BBK-WESN
Capacity: 5 TB

I played around with moving single cores moving game/GBA to Hard drive for example at first to see if they would get recognized with no luck.

I then directly copied the games folder from the SD card to the Harddrive. And then deleted the games folder from the SD card.

Not a single core works I get the message "Missing directory:"

Ive erased it to both Fat32 and ExFat and I plugged it into every USB port. I've even tried other USB's with no luck.

I just don't think USB hard drives are being recognized?

I'm currently stuck with a Macbook atmo not sure if that is an issue when it comes to formatting hard drives.

Any recommendations?

[MiSTer_Kirk]

Make sure you are not putting the directories into a "Games" directory, put them in the root of the HD + make sure the names match the names on your SDCard.
Have a read through this thread, it may help.

viewtopic.php?f=30&t=493

[MrBoydee]

I read that but may have misunderstood it.

Okay so I should put cores folders directly on the hard drive. (NES,SNES, GBA,etc)

And keep the game folder on SD card with the core names only no roms?

Would the boot.rom need to be on the SD and the HD or just one?

---------

Okay I put all the cores directly on the hard drive (NES,SNES, GBA,etc) kept a games folder on the root of the SD. I haven't added all core folders back just yet but tried with a single folder games/GBA on the SD.

With the.boot folder there I got the boot sequence but no games located.

when taking the .boot out of the games/GBA on the SD I got the same "Missing directory:" message.

[bazza_12]

try placing the boot rom file in the particular game folder on the HD, i.e. O:\Amiga\kick.rom

[OriginalXOR]

Remember that everything is case sensitive too...

If your paths have capitalization (or not) on your SD card they need to be exactly the same on your HDD too, I had similar issues when moving my ao486 archives around, was head scratching for a long while before I noticed.

[MrBoydee]

Hey I have done this now. The core names are exactly the same on both. When I go to load a core no games files are found and obviously no .boot sequence for games that use it.

So I think it's only seeing the SD card folder names.

This build has the original USB board version 1.2. I have tried using every USB with no luck. Should I be using the USB circled in red is that Usb0 I hear that term a lot looking up solutions.

Can maybe try more USB devices formatted to ExFat. Any way to force USB reads? Or even see the HD is seen on the Mister?

[MrBoydee]

Got it working with another USB! which made me reformat my hard drive again to ExFat and then test it on the 5Tb one and it now works! Thank you for your support everyone!.

if I do update all is there anything to worry about? Any settings I should adjust?

[bazza_12]

good question, the update all can be set to d/load arcade core rom files, it usually saves them to the games/mame and games/hbmame folder.. it might be worth trying it to see if it saves these to the SD card or the HDD. alternatively you could change the rom file locations to the SDcard in the update all settings. i've got a feeling the arcade cores look for the rom files on the sdcard. i maybe wrong on all of this..

[MrBoydee]

What I found is it reloaded them all to the SD card not sure if then when I go to use arcade it's now pulling from the SD or the HD.

Tried to delete the game files off the hard drive and that left nothing. I think it can only see one at a time.

So think I'll have to manually update the HD each time dragging the new folders after an update.

Or unplug HD when need to use Arcade.

I'm not sure it's updating the files for the new games on the HD either?

[MiSTer_Kirk]

I keep all my cores, and system files on the SDCard. They are too small in filesize to worry about filling my SDCard, which is 128Gb.
My External HD is ExFat, 2Gb, and just holds games for systems where the total games are rather large in size.

[MrBoydee]

Yea storage is not the issue for me now I have 256GB SD card and 5TB HD it’s more clarification what’s happening when update all happens.

If it’s just updating SD card then none of those updates would be seen unless I unplug HD.

More wondering though are things like bug fixes and improvements for other cores happening or does update just ignore the HD entirely.

What about cheat data is that just known by games already or would it need to be pulled in somehow?

Sorry to ask so many questions just obsessed with this thing atmo I love it!

[FoxbatStargazer]

I would edit the ini file for update_all if you want it to put arcade roms and bios on your HD.

[bazza_12]

More wondering though are things like bug fixes and improvements for other cores happening or does update just ignore the HD entirely.

What about cheat data is that just known by games already or would it need to be pulled in somehow?

Sorry to ask so many questions just obsessed with this thing atmo I love it!

If you're storing ONLY games on the HD and everything else on the SDcard, when you run update or update_all it will update the SDcard system files. The rom files (games) aren't part of any official core d/load (unless specifically included in the github for that core) so will be unaffected by update scripts.

Cheat data is also stored on the SDcard.

[MrBoydee]

Ah that’s good to know I though maybe if a specific game say like a Star Fox ran incorrectly to the original hardware and it was not seen on the root it might not fix it.

That’s really good to know that’s it’s all updated through the SD card.

[Aspie]

I moved my games folder to a USB memory stick and everything runs fine. The problem is when I run the update all script. It detects no games on the SD card and creates a new games folder and proceeds to download every Mame rom again.

Am I right in thinking if I add the line ROMDIR=/usb0/games/mame to the update_mame-getter.sh file it will fix this and check the games folder on the USB stick first?

Thanks

[jca]

I created 2 ini files for mame and hbmame, each containing
ROMMAME=/media/usb0/games/mame
ROMHBMAME=/media/usb0/games/mame

[Aspie]

jca, it didn't work. It still tries to download all the Mame roms to a new games folder on the SD card

[FoxbatStargazer]

The update-all script itself lets you edit the mame/hbmame location via its options, I would use that to make sure the setting gets written to the proper location.

[Aspie]

FoxbatStargazer, I looked at the options and it gives me two options to choose
games/mame
_Arcade/mame

Neither of which I want. It doesn't allow me to input my own location

[jca]

jca, it didn't work. It still tries to download all the Mame roms to a new games folder on the SD card

I must admin that I do not understand what is going on with the update scripts. I have almost everything on the USB drive and have symlinks from the SD card to the USB drive for all these directories. The update scripts used to work, no need to set ini files as the scripts used the symlinks. I am still using the old updater with the update all script. At some point I started to experience problems with Arcade related stuff and things started to work again after creating ini files jotego, mame and hbmame. When it did not work the scripts just said that they did not find any mra but did not create anything on the SD card. It looks like the problems started after the introduction of the new symlinks but I cannot say for sure.
This is my ini file for mame and hbmame:
MRADIR=/media/usb0/_Arcade
ROMMAME=/media/usb0/games/mame
ROMHBMAME=/media/usb0/games/mame
I also have MRADIR as my _Arcade directory is on the uSB drive.

[lomdar67]

A possible workaround could be to simply mount your hd to "/media/fat/games" and not to "/media/usb0"

[Aspie]

jca, I finally got it to work using your method. Thanks for the help