Recalbox SD card cloning issue

[breakbob]

Hello , I know it's boring to death subject but this is never happened to me before.
I have recently created Recalbox 7.2 64GB backup with Win32Imager and decided to put it on another brand new SD card for experimenting. Both cards have the same letters and file system assignments (E:fat32, Recalbox ; F:exFat, Share) and both are readable in Windows, etc. However when I boot Recalbox from this new SD card it's behaving like it's from the first fresh installation, disk is showing 100% full and SHARE partition isn't visible at all, looks like card isn't mounting at all. I didn't have issues before with different images, the only difference now is the brand - old card is SanDisk and new one is Kingston. I don't really want to install new Recalbox again and copy all folders manually to Share partition

[Zing]

@breakbob This procedure only works correctly to back up the image and restore to the same SD card. It does not work correctly for another SD card of the "same size" from the same brand (for example): there is no SD card with the exact same size as the other. The manufacturing process for storage devices does not guarantee 100% accuracy: if you check in windows explorer, you will notice that your 2 64Gb cards are not exactly the same size, but both will be approximately 64Gb.

Example: Imagine that your SD card from sandisk has exactly 64 GB, and your SD card from Kingston has 63.99 Gb. Win32Imager will make an image of exactly 64 Gb, and the Kingston card only has 63.99Gb so the image does not fit.
If you make a backup with the Win32Imager of the Kingston SD card and restore it on the sandisk, it will fit, but it will be left with 0.01Gb unused. (It's a hypothetical example, just for you to understand the process)

In order for you to use all the capacity of the kingston card in the example above, you would need to resize the partitions, and it would be extremely laborious for something unnecessary.
The correct procedure in this case is:

• Flash the latest official version of Recalbox,
• Start once to have the system automatically resize the SHARE partition to use all available device space
• Copy the BIOS, ROMS, SAVES folders from your previous image. Only those folders, otherwise, you will take advantage of configuration files that can generate conflicts.

Look:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skeULeTu7p8&list=PL2oNQ0AT7fx2ExiSNrfHUzga5GnogI4sh&index=23&ab_channel=RecalboxRecalbox

SHARE partition isn't visible at all, looks like card isn't mounting at all

I'm not sure I understand, I think you are saying that the SHARE partition is not visible in windows, is that it? If so, it's a Windows bug, see if that helps:
https://forum.recalbox.com/topic/22741/transferring-roms-directly-to-microsd-card-it-works

[breakbob]

Thanks @zing I didn't know each card have different size - every time I try to write image on Kingston card I have message on Win32Imager that isn't enough space and some files contains some data. It makes all sense now! I will have to install fresh image and copy files to Share partition manually or just buy USB stick and store all roms there since I'm removing my SD card quite often to add more roms and it's awkward sometimes (and I lost one SD 128GB already)

[Zing]

@breakbob

USB stick and store all roms there

It is recommended that you use the SD card only for the system, and keeping your ROMS, BIOS etc. in external storage, is much more practical and, if there is a problem with the system, it is easier to solve, see this video (enable subtitles):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skeULeTu7p8&list=PL2oNQ0AT7fx2ExiSNrfHUzga5GnogI4sh&index=23&ab_channel=RecalboxRecalbox

[breakbob]

Surerly will stick to USB . Any good recommendation for brands? I use Sandisk models and they never failed me. Not recommending Verbatim , SD and USB failed for me before

[Zing]

@breakbob Sandisk is usually a good choice.