RS-97 PRO Custom Firmware Install Guide

[Dave C]

Before going any further. Please note that installing a custom firmware will delete the contents of the internal storage, including all installed games. You will need to install your own games, DroiX will not provide them.


Identifying the Revision of your device

Identifying and choosing the correct model of device is important as there are some hardware differences which require different drivers. If you write the wrong image, the custom firmware may not load and give errors. You can simply choose another revision and rewrite the firmware, or install the original firmware again.

Opening Up The RS-97

There is one battery compartment screw which you should first unscrew to remove the battery so it does not switch on while opening it up. This will also reveal one case screw underneath. Next remove the Micro SD Card cartridge from the device, it pulls out very easily. This will also reveal a case screw underneath. You will see a total of five case screws.



Unscrew the five case screws and gently remove the bottom half of the case from the device.

Finding the hardware revision number

On the bottom right of the board you will find the hardware revision number. There are five distinct revisions for the RS-97.



1 - Revision 1.0, 2.0, 1.05 (old)
2 - Revision 2.1 (old)
3 - Revision 1.0S (new)
4 - Revision 2.1 (new)
5 - Revision 3.0

Make a note of the revision number as you will need this shortly.

Preparing the Custom Firmware

Download the Custom Firmware from https://jutleys.wixsite.com/retrogamers97-90/home pick the one according to your hardware revision number.

Depending on which firmware you have downloaded you may or may not need to do the following steps. If there is no runmefirst.bat then you can skip this part until "Writing the Custom Firmware Image file" below.

Double click on runmefirst.bat and a command prompt menu will show asking to choose an option.



Choose option 1 - Stock kernel.

The second menu will appear, you will need to choose your device and hardware revision number.



Match the hardware revision number with the option numbers on the menu and press this option on your keyboard.

The custom firmware fw.img file will now be patched with the correct drivers for your hardware revision.



This process can take several minutes depending on the speed of your PC, so leave it running and once it is completed you will see the screen below.



Continued below.

 

[Dave C]

Writing the Custom Firmware Image file

Removing the Micro SD Card

The internal Micro SD Card can be found underneath a piece of protective foam in the bottom left area of your device.



Gently pull back the foam covering and slide out the Micro SD Card.

Writing the image file

Download and install one of the following Image writing programs:

Win32 DiskImager program from https://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/
Etcher from https://www.balena.io/etcher/

Insert the Micro SD Card into your PC’s card reader. You may get some notifications that new drives are not formatted, select Cancel for all of them.

Load the Win32 DiskImager program and choose the first drive (Device) for your SD Card reader.

Click on the small blue folder icon and select the fw.img file that you had earlier extracted and patched



Double and triple check that you have selected the correct drive for the Micro SD Card and that you have prepared and chosen the correct image file. Once checked, press Write to begin writing the image file.




The process should take around 5 minutes depending on the speed of the card and your PC.

Once completed, you can click on Exit to close the program.

Resizing Your Micro SD Card

Download and install MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition from https://www.minitool.com/download-center/

Open the Partition Wizard software and it will scan and display your storage on the PC. You need to carefully choose which is the correct entry for your Micro SD Card.

You can identify it usually by the size on the left column, it should be close to the size of your Micro SD Card, in this case our 16GB card is showing 14.57GB with four partitions (Unallocated, rootfs, FAT32, unallocated). Your card should look similar.


Click on the FAT32 partition for your Micro SD Card and then Right click to bring up the menu. Choose Expand from the menu.


Move the slider all the way to the right side to allocate all of the unallocated space to the FAT32 partition, then click on OK.



Once back on the main menu, click on Apply in the top left corner and it will proceed to allocate the space to the FAT32 partition.


Once completed, you can close the program and your Micro SD card is now ready to be used.

Continued below.

 

[Dave C]

Putting it all together again

If you are planning to use the internal storage for the games. You can now write them to the MicroSD Card before putting the RS-97 back together again, see below for how to do this.

If you plan to use the external storage you can start to put everything together again.

First, insert the Micro SD Card back in to the internal reader. Add the protective foam back on the reader to keep it secure.

Fit the bottom half of the case to the top of the case. It should easily fit and click in place.

Screw the five case screws back in the case.

Insert the External Micro SD Card cartridge back in to the device.

Insert the battery into the battery compartment, ensure that it is inserted the correct position.

Fit the battery compartment lid back on and screw the lid screw back in.

Adding your own games

You can use either the internal or external Micro SD card to add your own games. We recommend using an external Micro SD card as it is quicker and easier to update if you wish to add or delete games in the future.

Internal SD Card Only

If you are using the internal Micro SD card you will need to copy the files to a location. First insert the card into your PC. You may get some notifications that new drives are not formatted, select Cancel for all of them.

Choose the last USB Device on your list, it should have a rs-97 icon. You should see the contents of it as below. You can copy any files to the roms folder.



External Micro SD Card Only

If you have not already, format your Micro SD card to FAT32. Insert the Micro SD Card into your PC. In Explorer, right click on the Micro SD Card drive and choose format.

Copying files

We recommend keeping an organised folder structure if you are planning to add many games. By making folders for each system it allows for easier finding of games and also faster loading times. Make a folder for each of the systems you plan to add games for.



If you have a large number of games for a system, you can organise it further into subfolders such as A-F, G-L, M-R, T-Z. This makes it faster to load the list of games, and also saves time for you scrolling to get to a game beginning with M for example.

Copy over any files in to their respective folders. Once you are done you can insert the Micro SD Card into either the internal or external Micro SD Card slot.

Double check that everything is back in place and you can now power it on and boot into the new custom firmware.

 

[Dave C]

reserved for future use