accessing sd card from usb

[antonym]

Okay, so I have no idea if this is a dumb question or not, but could it be possible to access the sd card from a usb port on a raspberry pi?

I think it would be so convenient to be able to turn off the pi and access the sd card via usb without having to open up the build and get the sd card out.

thoughts?

[ekilla]

Hi. Am I right if I assume you have no experience at all with retropie or other os on the PI?

Since usually you would Access the SD Card via network.
You can use a USB Stick to transfer Roms to retropie.

[antonym]

I understand that. I've very scarcely used raspbian on the pi before, so I have very little experience with these things, which is why I haven't much of a clue about this stuff

But I was just wondering because if I ever wanted to access the information on the sd card without opening a project up, it would be incredibly helpful to have a way to access it through an instilled usb to sd card adapter. I don't know what specific case I would need to do that in, but if I ever had to replace the operating system or something like that, I wouldn't want to have to open up the build.

[ekilla]

You can have access the contend of the SD Card using WiFi if you use an PI 0 W (build in wifi) or if you install an USB WIFI Dongle inside you PI 0 build.

You can have access to the SD Card itself if you either mount the PI in a way that you can use a Slot that you cut in your build to reach the card

Or you use a sd card cartridge Extension like they are sold in this forum. Your SD Card sits in the gb cardridge which you can remove.
I need to see who sells them.
I have one at home to, but I'm not going to use it, since its not very likely you need to remove the SD Card.

If you need to do it once, opening the case should be no problem.

[McGyver]

For sd card extension: there are exiting adapter cables for sd extension on aliexpress and maybe ebay.
Be aware: if you read the sd card direct by your computer and not via wifi you will see no real usefull contend on windows or mac by default because of linux file format (ext4). This is for the most user another reason to prefer wifi access.

[moosepr]

There are 'Gadget' modes you can enable on the zero, they let it pretend to be various things like a network device, or even a storage device. They are not the perfect system though. You have to create a dummy file system within the pi filesystem which will then get used as what the usb port can see. You could technically use that to copy files then use ssh to then move those files to where they need to be. It would be simpler to actually just use the ssh connection to transfer the files directly using something like winscp.

https://gist.github.com/gbaman/50b6cca61dd1c3f88f41

[antonym]

For sd card extension: there are exiting adapter cables for sd extension on aliexpress and maybe ebay.
Be aware: if you read the sd card direct by your computer and not via wifi you will see no real usefull contend on windows or mac by default because of linux file format (ext4). This is for the most user another reason to prefer wifi access.

I really like this idea of using an adapter cable to make the card easily accessible. I, however, was unaware that some files would be unreadable because of the linux file format. That's some good knowledge to know! In the meantime, I think I might just use the adapter cable for my builds to make the sd card easily accessible, but I'll probably use wifi to be able to access it if need be. Thanks!

[Effin Enjeffin]

You could also boot a windows computer into a version of linux on a thumb drive. This is a useful skill to have anyway in case windows crashes or gets infected. Once in linux you will be able to read your SD card
https://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-mult ... b-creator/