Microbc Posted February 24, 2022 Share Posted February 24, 2022 I have the latest Stella image for the retron 77. I formatted the card as FAT32 and used Win32diskimager to write the image to the card. Added roms and everything works fine. My question is, I am using a 16GB SD card and when I write the image it becomes a card with only 79MB of space. Is there any way to expand the partition to make it the full 4GB that FAT32 supports? I tried using a partition manager app and it won't let me do it. If this is the wrong place to post this I apologize. please direct me to the best place to ask this question. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariSphinx Posted February 25, 2022 Share Posted February 25, 2022 Not sure this will solve your issue but for the Atari Flashback Portable many users found that the SD Association's Card Formatter utility produces results than the Windows built-in one. You can see if that helps any. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Microbc Posted February 25, 2022 Author Share Posted February 25, 2022 Thanks AtariSphinx! I will give that a try. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Microbc Posted February 25, 2022 Author Share Posted February 25, 2022 (edited) Hi AtariSphinx, I just tried it out. Same results (only 79MB card size after flashing the image file). I guess I would need a partition utility (tried several, none worked) that I haven't found yet (if this is even possible)! Thanks again! Edited February 25, 2022 by Microbc 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 25, 2022 Share Posted February 25, 2022 What tool are you using to write the image? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Microbc Posted February 25, 2022 Author Share Posted February 25, 2022 (edited) 19 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: What tool are you using to write the image? I have tried a number of format utilities including WIN32 Disk Imager, balenaEtcher and SD Associations Disk Formatter. I have also tried a number of partition tools including Window 10 built in tools, Partition Wizard, Partition Guru, and GParted. I can add a second partition in the unused space but can't expand the partition so that it can all be seen by Stella on the Retron77. If I were running Stella on Windows I believe that I could switch to the other partition on the card (E: and F:) but the Retron version will only allow me to see the file system on the image and not switch to the other partition. I had hoped that I could flash the card and then create a single larger partition to use the entire card. Maybe it isn't even possible! Edited February 25, 2022 by Microbc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 25, 2022 Share Posted February 25, 2022 No, it is very possible. But I am no expert here. @DirtyHairy Do you have an idea what is going wrong? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Microbc Posted February 25, 2022 Author Share Posted February 25, 2022 (edited) 47 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: No, it is very possible. But I am no expert here. @DirtyHairy Do you have an idea what is going wrong? Not really. It seems that the .img file for the Retron77 formats and writes the image on any SD card at the size that the image was created at. Since it is a bootable SD card after writing the image, i suspect that the partition tools treat it as a 79MB card. I can create a second partition on any card I try but that partition is not accessible from Stella on the Retron77 (but is accessible from Stella on a Windows PC). I have used partition software to expand SD cards that were not bootable but I can't find anyway to expand the cards I have tried in the Retron77. I know that FAT32 formatted cards have a 4GB limit and it would be nice to get the .img on a 4GB partition. I have a number of 2600 libraries that I wanted to keep on the card but they exceed the available space on the card once the image is flashed. Edited February 25, 2022 by Microbc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 25, 2022 Share Posted February 25, 2022 OK, I thought my SD cart would be larger, but it is formatted like yours. Anyway, IMO that's no problem, because the whole 2600 library fits on the remaining space multiple times. Why do you prefer a larger one? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Microbc Posted February 25, 2022 Author Share Posted February 25, 2022 (edited) 19 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: OK, I thought my SD cart would be larger, but it is formatted like yours. Anyway, IMO that's no problem, because the whole 2600 library fits on the remaining space multiple times. Why do you prefer a larger one? I have a number of 2600 libraries that I wanted to keep on the card but they exceed the available space on the card once the image is flashed. I realize that I will have many duplicates on the card but I like to keep the libraries on there in the format I have them set up. I have tons of hacks and homebrew along with all the originals and when I try to put what I have on the card I come up a little short on space. You would be amazed by how many variations there are on Atari 2600 roms and I like to mess around with all of them! Edited February 25, 2022 by Microbc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rodney Hester Posted March 1, 2022 Share Posted March 1, 2022 On 2/25/2022 at 2:49 PM, Microbc said: I have a number of 2600 libraries that I wanted to keep on the card but they exceed the available space on the card once the image is flashed. I realize that I will have many duplicates on the card but I like to keep the libraries on there in the format I have them set up. I have tons of hacks and homebrew along with all the originals and when I try to put what I have on the card I come up a little short on space. You would be amazed by how many variations there are on Atari 2600 roms and I like to mess around with all of them! Even zipped? At least on mine, the screenshots consume more space than the ROMs themselves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Microbc Posted March 1, 2022 Author Share Posted March 1, 2022 4 hours ago, Rodney Hester said: Even zipped? At least on mine, the screenshots consume more space than the ROMs themselves. Hi Rodney, Zipping some of the files would make the libraries smaller but I was hoping to be able to take advantage of more of the capacity of the card. I thought there might be a way to expand the partition that writing the image creates but as of yet I haven't been able to find a way to accomplish that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted March 1, 2022 Share Posted March 1, 2022 Probably the image would have to be created larger. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Microbc Posted March 1, 2022 Author Share Posted March 1, 2022 4 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: Probably the image would have to be created larger. I haven't been able to find a way to make the image utilize a larger partition when writing it to the card. I wonder if that can only be done when the original image was created (based on the size of the card it was written to)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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