help needed with time settings

Hi,
how can I manually store the settings in the “Time and Date” conf module?
After booting into the desktop I have to freshly click on the “DST” setting to get the correct time for my timezone CET (GMT+1) displayed. In the config window I then choose to “Save CMOS” but after a reset DST again is unmarked.
Is there any way to save this correctly or to configure that manually?
Thanks for any help.

It should ‘just work’. Are you using a standard SD card image? Do you know whether other CMOS settings are persisting across reboots?

my specs are: Raspberry Pi3, RiscOS 5.23
I have already deleted CMOS in !Boot/Loader/ and manually saved it with console command SaveCMOS.
Anyways the DST option is reset with every fresh boot of the system.

Another strange thing, I’ve updated all system files to the latest beta-built including the /Loader files and Harddisc4 files, but info at the raspberry symbol still keeps telling me this is RiscOS 5.23.

Have you been running RISC OS on the Pi for a while? Is the DST issue new or has it always done that?

Or is this a new installation? 5.23 is fairly old so if this is a new install then I’d suggest getting either 5.24 or RC16 from the download page.

Have you, at some point, copied or renamed the loader folder? You may not be running the files you expect; The RISC OS PI SD images is a little quirky in that the loader file can be thought of a bit like a hard link to a location on the disc, but if you make a copy and change the files in it, even if your copy is still called !Boot.Loader, it can be pointing at a different location than PI is using to boot.

I’m running the 5.23 system for over a year now, so I’d prefer to upgrade this system to a newer version instead of simply replacing it by a new image.
@Chris, yes, the problem has been since beginning.
@Will, I didn’t copy or rename the folder, as far as I remember. Good point about the link to another disc location, where else could the loader files be located that are used at boot? How can I check which files really are used during boot?

Thanks for your help :)

Probably the easist way to check would be to create a new file in loader, eg. TEMP/TXT, then shutdown, put the sd card in a reader on another computer and see if that file is present in the boot partition.
Edit: Even if that does prove you are running the expected files, uprading the rom will also need an updated !Boot to match, which currently is not trivial to just replace. It can be done, but depending on how much you’ve changed, starting with a new image and copying your files back might still be the simplest way forward.

Hi Will,
I think you are right, there seems to be 2 partitions on the micro SD card, one is readable with Windows the other one not. The readable partition contains the riscos.img and as well the other system files. So this seems to be the partition that is booted at startup.

Is it possible to simply overwrite the system files under Windows with the newer equivalents? Or is the format of those files completely different from those contained on the RiscOS partition?

As I have worked a lot meanwhile with the RiscOS installation and I’d like to keep all my settings, applications and data, is there any easy and uncomplicated way to start with a fresh install and copy those data back?

cheers,
Oli

If you want to go for a new install, RISC OS Pi is probably the easiest one to use. Use a program such as Win32DiskImager or Etcher to write the .img file to an SD card (2GB minimum). Plug this card into the SD slot on your Pi and boot into RISC OS.

Copying your applications and data over is relatively easy from RISC OS, provided that you do have a (USB-connected) SD card reader: plug the old SD card into the reader, plug the reader into the Pi and right-click on the drive icon that appears.

If you haven’t got an SD card reader it’s more tricky: you can copy files using the SD slot in the Pi itself, but you’ll be swapping cards rather a lot…

@Stuart, good hint about the external card-reader, thanks for that, I think I will give this a try :)

The two partitions you see is correct, and the loader should point to the one you see, so any files changed there, with Windows, should be reflected in RISC OS. And yes, it is fine to update the files there from Windows too (leave the other partition it doesnt recognise alone), but as I noted before, ideally you need a matching !Boot for the OS version.
What I would do, and this is not a definitive list, but works for me, would be:
Ideally, clone the whole SD card on Windows, and save the image, then

1. In RISC OS, shift-drag the Loader folder from !Boot to the root folder (the ‘Shift’ will move, rather than copy; Very important)
2. Crate a new folder, eg. ‘NewHD4’, then download, and unzip the !Boot from Harddisc4 from the downloads page.
3. Download and unzip the corrisponding RISC OC ROM image
4. Rename your existing !Boot to eg ‘old!Boot’
5. Copy/Move NewHD4.!Boot to the root folder
6. update the RISCOS/IMG in Loader to the one you downloaded earlier
7. Reboot, then well be ready to start restoring config etc.
8. Shift-doule click open !Boot and Old!Boot, go into choices in both, and copy all except the Boot folder from the old to new.
9. Double-click !Boot, to open configre, then go to System to open the System Merge tool, the find OldSystem, and drag it in to merge.
10. Reboot and make sure it’s still working.

Other folder/files you might consider copying back in is anything you need in old!Boot.Resources that’s not present in the new !Boot,and anything you’ve knowingly added in !Boot.Choices.Boot.Tasks and Predesk.
That should get you pretty much up to date on !Boot, while retaining bost of your setting (you might have to reset your network setting if you’ve not been using DHCP)

Also, the newer HardDisc4 image would contain updated vesions of Apps and Utilities etc, so these could be copied accross as replacements.

Having said all that, as Stuart has said, starting with a new SD is easy. And low risk, if something goes wrong merging in your old settings, you can start again… Starting with a completly fresh image on a new SD card, the !Boot merging of your old !Boot would be similar to the steps above from step 8 if you want to keep your settings, and then you’d bring in all your other files/folders/apps etc. from your old SD card, ideally plugged in to a USB card reader.

@Will, thanks a lot for the detailed instructions. I’ve already done a backup of my Sd-card on Windows, so I should be fine to experiment.
I will work through your instructions tomorrow.

@Will, your instructions helped a lot. Everything was straight forward and easy going. I copied over the system files to the 1st partition with my Windows PC. The boot! files have been merged before and the Harddisc4 files have been updated as well. After rebooting RiscOS with the new files my RiscOS Version now is 5.27.
After that I’ve copied my CMOS settings to a USB stick and wrote it back to the 1st partition with the Windows PC.
Now the system clock in RiscOS displays the correct time.
Thanks a lot for your help, I’m totally happy!

• problems solved *

That’s great, glad you’ve got it sorted 👍