SD boot + USB root Lakka for Raspberry Pi 4?

Libretro Lakka
#1

Is it possible, or has anyone successfully loaded the nightly Lakka build with Pi 4 support from a USB SSD using the older method of leaving bootcode.bin on the SD card and having the OS run off of the USB drive? Hopefully someone here knows what I’m talking about. It’s a older way of running a Pi image off of a USB drive that was used before they enable directly booting from a USB on the Pi 2 and 3. The Pi 4 still does not have USB boot functionality, so this would be the only option I’m aware of for running any image (including a Lakka image) off of a USB drive. People have got it working on Raspbian, so I tried the same method, but couldn’t get Lakka going. Maybe I did something wrong, or maybe there is something essentially different about Lakka that makes it either impossible to boot this way, or that I would need to set it up differently.

Thanks,

#2

Bump.

I’d also like to know. The sd cards were never ment to be used in the way they are with the raspberry pi. They were ment to store files and stay stores. But systems like the raspberry constantly read and write to the card. A hhd/ssd connected to the usb port. (3.0 usb port for my self) would play the games and emulators way better and give the user a better experience. I know of a way to do it for retropi but it’s not out yet for RPI 4. I would love to know if it supports native usb booting as the 3b+ version of the pi did. Or if it needs some tinkering

#3

It doesn’t support it natively. Pi4 can only boot from an SD or network. There is a blog post on James A Chambers tech blog that details how to do it with a Pi4 and Raspbian. I tried and failed with lakka six months ago and nobody came to my rescue. The raspberry pi foundation will eventually enable usb boot, i would guess this year sometime. Lakka will definitely be able to do it when that firware update happens. Until then, we’ll need a guardian angel to swoop in and tell us how to set up a hack.

#4

Thank you for your quick reply. I got it to work on raspbian, with retro pie on top. Thought there was a similar way of doing it. It involved making the os read from the ssd with the sd card as a boot loader.

#5

It could be possible. I found out that my usb to sata adapter is on a list of non-working devices for the pi4, so it might work fine and it’s just my adapter. I’m going to try it when I get a chance.