MiSTer FPGA Forum

Welp, out of nowhere, today my MiSTer will no longer mount my USB drive at startup...

I have all official parts that were purchased from misteraddons about a year ago or more.
I haven't updated or changed anything in my setup in the past two weeks so I know that's not the cause. (used it almost every day between then and now without issue)

I am on MiSTer v211010, OS v210917.
I have tested my USB drive on a PC and it works fine.
My USB hub technically must be working since my controller works in all 7 of the ports but USB storage simply won't mount.
I am also using the recommended MeanWell 5v 4a power supply with the misteraddons supplied barrel jack splitter to power both the DE10nano and the USB hub.

I'm totally at a loss why it won't pick up my USB storage anymore...

Anyone have any suggestions I can try?
Thanks in advance.

Sounds suspiciously similar to the USB issues I have had with a hub that worked without issues for months. But then suddenly, recently, my USB devices remained unpowered after boot.

yeah.
All my ports get power when I try them and all send/receive fine with a different device like a controller or wifi plugged in. It even briefly talks to the drive on boot - the access light flashes just after the menu core loads as is typical when it's working as it should.

And today it's working fine... I have quite literally touched nothing since the last few consecutive failed boots yesterday...

Sounds familiar... I wonder if there are grounding issues or something.

that makes more sense for your issue than mine.
All my ports were getting power. all non-storage devices worked fine. Even the SSD I was using blinked it's access light when the MiSTer menu core loaded as if it was being read, it just wasn't having its 'games' folder data merged with the SD card 'games' folder like it should be.

esmith13 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 04, 2021 10:23 am that makes more sense for your issue than mine.
All my ports were getting power. all non-storage devices worked fine. Even the SSD I was using blinked it's access light when the MiSTer menu core loaded as if it was being read, it just wasn't having its 'games' folder data merged with the SD card 'games' folder like it should be.

when using an external SSD there is no /games directory. I found I had to put the directories directly at the root of the USB drive. So rather than have /games/c64 on the ssd I would need /c64. When I did that the SSD content overrides whatever was on the SD card. I found no way to merge the ssd and sd card data. If the SSD has the directory then the SD card didnt show. if the SSD didnt have the directory then the SD card was shown, but I never found a way to have both merged.

FPGA64 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 04, 2021 11:35 am when using an external SSD there is no /games directory. I found I had to put the directories directly at the root of the USB drive. So rather than have /games/c64 on the ssd I would need /c64. When I did that the SSD content overrides whatever was on the SD card. I found no way to merge the ssd and sd card data. If the SSD has the directory then the SD card didnt show. if the SSD didnt have the directory then the SD card was shown, but I never found a way to have both merged.

It must accept both options then. I just verified before posting this - my SSD has one folder on the root of it called 'games' and the properly named folders for each core inside of it with the roms/disk images/etc inside of those folders. It works perfectly that way for me. What I meant by it merging the contents of both was not that it shows files from both sources for a single system, but that systems that are only on SSD show up in the menu and systems that are only on the SD show up in the menu as well. So it merges both 'games' folders but does not merge two of the same folders from inside of 'games'.

FPGA64 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 04, 2021 11:35 am

esmith13 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 04, 2021 10:23 am that makes more sense for your issue than mine.
All my ports were getting power. all non-storage devices worked fine. Even the SSD I was using blinked it's access light when the MiSTer menu core loaded as if it was being read, it just wasn't having its 'games' folder data merged with the SD card 'games' folder like it should be.

when using an external SSD there is no /games directory. I found I had to put the directories directly at the root of the USB drive. So rather than have /games/c64 on the ssd I would need /c64. When I did that the SSD content overrides whatever was on the SD card. I found no way to merge the ssd and sd card data. If the SSD has the directory then the SD card didnt show. if the SSD didnt have the directory then the SD card was shown, but I never found a way to have both merged.

Yup, this is working as intended. If you ssh into the MiSTer you will see in the folder /media that there are multiple usb# folders. When you plugin a usb storage device it mounts them to there, and a hierarchy is given. If you have /media/fat/games/ao486 (your sdcard full path) filled with some files, then when you plugin a usb that has /games/ao486 it will mount that one on priority and that same folder will be pointing to the USB drive.

aberu wrote: ↑Thu Nov 04, 2021 12:12 pm

FPGA64 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 04, 2021 11:35 am

esmith13 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 04, 2021 10:23 am that makes more sense for your issue than mine.
All my ports were getting power. all non-storage devices worked fine. Even the SSD I was using blinked it's access light when the MiSTer menu core loaded as if it was being read, it just wasn't having its 'games' folder data merged with the SD card 'games' folder like it should be.

when using an external SSD there is no /games directory. I found I had to put the directories directly at the root of the USB drive. So rather than have /games/c64 on the ssd I would need /c64. When I did that the SSD content overrides whatever was on the SD card. I found no way to merge the ssd and sd card data. If the SSD has the directory then the SD card didnt show. if the SSD didnt have the directory then the SD card was shown, but I never found a way to have both merged.

Yup, this is working as intended. If you ssh into the MiSTer you will see in the folder /media that there are multiple usb# folders. When you plugin a usb storage device it mounts them to there, and a hierarchy is given. If you have /media/fat/games/ao486 (your sdcard full path) filled with some files, then when you plugin a usb that has /games/ao486 it will mount that one on priority and that same folder will be pointing to the USB drive.

That didnt happen for me. As I say I got nothing on the SSD until I removed the /games directory from the SSD then it worked. I have never worked out why I dont seem to need the /games directory and others do.

Are you, by chance using a USB drive the 'old way' where in the system settings menu you choose the option to 'Switch to USB'?

No. I am not using that option. I am just plugging the SSD into a USB port

On the MiSTer sdcard do you have your games in /media/fat/games/snes, etc...? Do you have cores in /media/fat/_Console (or _Arcade/cores, or _Computer, etc...). I know there was a different method of putting your files there that some people used way back when where it didn't match this structure.

aberu wrote: ↑Thu Nov 04, 2021 2:43 pm On the MiSTer sdcard do you have your games in /media/fat/games/snes, etc...? Do you have cores in /media/fat/_Console (or _Arcade/cores, or _Computer, etc...). I know there was a different method of putting your files there that some people used way back when where it didn't match this structure.

Not sure if that was directed at me or FPGA64 but just in case this is my setup:

My SD Card is mounted as '/media/fat' and on it I do have a 'games' folder and some games are in core folders inside of 'games'. I typically have all my cart rom based systems on the SD card. My arcade games are in '/media/fat/_Arcade/cores' as expected. My USB SSD is formatted NTFS and is mounted as '/media/usb0'. It has only a 'games' folder at the root level ( /media/usb0/games). Inside of 'games' I have folders for cores that use CD image files, computer hdd image files and NeoGeo roms since those game libraries are typically much larger than 16-bit and older cart based systems.

viewtopic.php?p=13325#p13325

Formatting the drive as NTFS could be the issue. Do a test with formatting as exFAT to see if that fixes the problem. exFAT is case-insensitive whereas NTFS is case-sensitive. NTFS is also allegedly less efficient on flash memory, so just another reason to go exFAT.

I used exFAT previously and had file corruption issues with it off and on. That's why I switched to NTFS. It has been much more stable since then, for me at least. I'm used to dealing with case sensitivity issues on other unrelated setups mixing Linux and NTFS so I'm conscious of that issue whenever I add/remove/change files. As far as efficiency is concerned, my ssd is so much more capable than what MiSTer can take advantage of that I don't worry about that. If I could affordably get a 1TB mSD card I wouldn't bother with a SSD at all.

esmith13 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 04, 2021 3:25 pm I used exFAT previously and had file corruption issues with it off and on. That's why I switched to NTFS. It has been much more stable since then, for me at least. I'm used to dealing with case sensitivity issues on other unrelated setups mixing Linux and NTFS so I'm conscious of that issue whenever I add/remove/change files. As far as efficiency is concerned, my ssd is so much more capable than what MiSTer can take advantage of that I don't worry about that. If I could affordably get a 1TB mSD card I wouldn't bother with a SSD at all.

It's just space efficiency that I meant. exFAT is a much more widely compatible format, but you are correct that NTFS is less prone to file corruption (if the operating system interacting with it supports the extended features like journaling, which I assume MiSTer's linux backend does, but that doesn't mean all of the mister interactions with storage are fully supporting these features).

That being said, case sensitivity in one case I'm seeing resolved the issue when the person renamed the folder to /games/AO486 from /games/ao486 on their NTFS drive, so that might have an impact. Not saying you are wrong that something could be messed up, just trying to find a solution.

I use Exfat and have all my cores in the standard locations that Mr Fusion uses. Games are all stored in the /fat/media/games/Core name directories. on the SD and in Core name on the SDD.

It works fine I just dont know why it works and that makes my mind unhappy

What is the reason for using these older filesystems?
I'd personally favor ext4 if I could.

held wrote: ↑Fri Nov 05, 2021 8:07 am What is the reason for using these older filesystems?
I'd personally favor ext4 if I could.

Simplicity. But there's no problem using ext4 on a USB drive.

I tried everything. I started with ext4, after some time I gave up on it because making a backup using a Windows machine is not the most convenient. Next I used NTFS, as I had "Switch to USB" I put the Scripts directory on USB but could not execute them as the drive is mounted with the option noexec which I fixed by modifying the mount options. Each time there was a Linux update I had to redo the change. In the end I used exFat which is easier to use. I also do not use "Switch to USB" but symlinks and kept the Scripts directory on the SD card so if the drive is mounted with noexec it does not matter.
Note that both ext4 and NTFS are case sensitive which can lead to strange problems: one time I had 2 directories in the games directory with the same name but different case. I noticed it when making a backup: although Windows does not use the case sensitivity the 2 directories are shown in file explorer but clicking on anyone goes to only one of them. I do I know? I was sure that I had the roms in only one of them and the other empty. I knew in which one I had put the roms and deleted the other. I ended up with my directory empty which I restored from the previous backup.

Solskogen wrote: ↑Fri Nov 05, 2021 8:11 am

held wrote: ↑Fri Nov 05, 2021 8:07 am What is the reason for using these older filesystems?
I'd personally favor ext4 if I could.

Simplicity. But there's no problem using ext4 on a USB drive.

Brilliant

jca wrote: ↑Fri Nov 05, 2021 11:04 am Note that both ext4 and NTFS are case sensitive which can lead to strange problems: one time I had 2 directories in the games directory with the same name but different case.

I'm a nix guy, so that's not a problem here.

So go with etx4, it works (as it should). Personally it was more experimenting with the various FS, I had ext4 for a long time, went the retrograde way etx4 -> NTFS -> exFAT. It works, I never had any FS corruption so for the time being I leave it like it is. At some point I may go back to ext4 as nothing beats a native FS.

Welp, believe it or not, after changing nothing in my setup (aside from running "update all" every few weeks, my MiSTer is back to ignoring the existence of a USB drive for games. The drive mounts fine in Windows and contains the correct files and folders (I never altered them, I have made NO rom related changes in months). I took two 32GB USB thumb drives, formatted one as ExFAT and the other as NTFS and created a single folder on each called 'games' and copied one or two of my rom directories from my (now no longer working) USB drive and tried each with a cold boot of the MiSTer. When I ssh into my MiSTer with putty and check /media/usb0 there is NOTHING there. I checked usb1 thru usb7 as well and still nothing (there is only one usb storage device connected). This same situation exists with the original drive as well as both new test drives I created. I am still using the official hub with a 5v 4a meanwell power adapter and the barrel plug Y cable to split the power directly to the MiSTer and the Hub - all the same as always for my hardware configuration. USB input devices work perfectly fine so the hub is sending/receiving data with the MiSTer... All three storage devices I'm testing with are solid state, no spinning disks. My original is an M.2 drive in a USB enclosure and the other two are sandisk thumb drives.

WTF?
Just... WTF???

Any suggestions would be appreciated - preferably not switching to ext4 since I am all Windows here

Nevermind... Working again today and I haven't touched anything since I gave up two days ago...