@subs @supernature2k @acris @Zelaf @mikeinnc
So, I got good news and some bad news. The good news is I got it to work. I am fortunate enough that I hang in the same food court as engineers of Sun Micro systems (the Unix creators). I told them about my problem and they said that this has been an increased problem for a lot of Linux, Unix and other type of 'inux' operating systems directly due to Windows users. Users who have Linux/Unix operating systems to partition and to format any type of SD cards don't have this issue. They even said that having any type of Class card (Class 1 through 10) has no bearing. That is simply the data transfer speed it can handle to transfer roms in/out of the SD card and tiny processing time to run the roms. The problem with Windows is that from Version 7 to Windows 10 (in both 32 and 64 bit), the partition and formatting seems to be off when some of the windows patches are applied. Not sure which ones as Microsoft won't tell us and nobody has gone through every combination of windows 7-8.1 and Windows 10 automatically applies everything regardless if you want them or not. They said that when you format a hard drive or SD card in these ranges of operating systems, especially from 8.x-10, the SD won't work in other linux/unix devices as windows thinks you'll be using those storage devices for its own purpose. They said that not all users having windows 7-10 are having the same problem as me, but if they would accurately guess from their experiences hearing in their own world, that its between 75-90% of people they run into.
Their suggestion is one of two. First, they said that if I have a Windows XP laying around to use it to partition, fat32 format and unzip the install files into the micro SD card. That actually worked!! and it worked for ALL my cards regardless of manufacturer and class and both Pi 2 and Pi 3
The bad news is that the Windows XP computer was a friend's of mine as all my computers at home are Windows 10. I even took my SD cards and my Pis to one of the engineer's house (as he is familiar with Pis, emulators and such) to test their theory as they have both windows 10 (64 bit) and Windows XP and they experienced the exact same problem on windows 10, even with their own SD cards.. But once they partitioned and formatted his and my SD cards and unzipped the install file into them from a windows xp machine, they worked like a charm..
They gave me advice which they suggested to pass onto whoever is creating RecalBox or give advice to the owner of Recalbox. This problem with SD cards is a dirty little secret that the world knows but a lot of people don't know how to truly fix as its a Windows issue. That is why the folks who created Raspberry, PiPay, RetroPie and other apps created their own IMG files so that people can simply use the Win32DiskImager tool to extract onto their SD cards regardless of Windows version. They said that if Recalbox wants to increase footprint of their product, they should create their own IMG files. New users who want to try out and use RecalBox and have little patience unlike myself will bail on the product on the first or second attempt out of frustration as googling the answer doesn't really help and asking forums for advice is a crap shoot unless they read this specific post.
Now that I have a working installed vanilla version, they said that I should use Win32DiskImager to backup the image off of the SD card and store it in a safe. They said that this image can simply be restored on any micro SD card regardless if size and class. So I tested that theory and he was correct. I used my Windows 10 machine and saved one of the images using Win32DiskImager. On the same Windows 10 machine, I then used Partition Wizard to partition and FAT32 format all my micro SD cards(regardless of manufacturer, size and class), and then used Win32DiskImager to restore from my backed up IMG file. THEY ALL WORK after doing full regression testing on them regardless if the backup image was done on a Pi 2 and restored on a Pi 3 and vise versa.
So not sure who is in charge of the forum to put the bug in the developer's ear, but a decision needs to be made to either create IMG install files or have a section in the forum where someone can drop their own vanilla IMG file installed version. The number of computers being upgraded to windows 10 is increasing and if the creators want to increase their footprint in this area, they need to address this request.
peace out
Tom
