Buy the Miyoo A30 here: https://joeysrh.link/ALI_MIYOOA30
or here: https://joeysrh.link/GGG_MA30 (use code JOEY for 15% off)
Recommended Accessories
- MicroSD Card: 128GB or 256GB (with the platforms this plays, you would be safe with either of these options)
- MicroSD Card Reader: UGREEN SD Card Reader
- Charger: UGREEN 65W Charger (use the USB-A port for charging)
Preparation
Clone SD card: The SD cards that come with these devices are unbranded, low quality and prone to failure. The suggestion is to always replace them as soon as you receive the device. For instructions on how to clone your SD card, see here. I would highly suggest doing so before following this guide.
Stock Setup Guide (without cloning)
This setup guide assumes you want to start from scratch, with a brand new branded SD card and you will be providing your own ROMs & BIOS files.
Connect your SD card to your PC.
Now, connect your branded SD card to your PC, I have a recommendation above. Download Rufus if you don’t have it already.
Open Rufus, and we’re going to format the SD card. Change boot selection to non bootable and you can rename the volume label if you’d like. Make sure File System is FAT32 or Large FAT32. Then click start and okay to any warnings.
When that’s done, leave it connected, we’ll come back to it.
Head to the Miyoo firmware website here: https://www.lomiyoo.com/en/gujianxiazai.html.
Download the firmware for the A30, it will usually say Miyoo A30-EN64GB-240501 or similar, the last numbers are the date. This will be a large, 40GB+.
Download each individual zip part separately (I tried downloading them all as one zip, and the zip would error out). You should have a bunch of .zip.XXX files, where XXX is a number.
You will need 7-zip from 7-zip.org for this next part.
Select the one that ends in 001, right click, 7-zip, extract here.
It should extract a bunch of folders and files. Copy all of those folders and files to the SD card that we previously formatted.
That’s it! Safely eject and put it into your Miyoo and turn it on, you’re all setup on stock.
If you want to add roms and bios files, move to that section.
Updating stock firmware and files
Connect your SD card to your PC.
Head to the Miyoo firmware website here: https://www.lomiyoo.com/en/gujianxiazai.html.
Download the firmware for the A30, it will usually say Miyoo A30 firmware, and it’s only a few mb.
Extract the zip file, and put the .img file onto the root of your Miyoo’s SD card.
Put the SD card in the device and connect it to a charger (USB C to USB A only), then turn it on.
You will see a notification that it’s doing a system upgrade, this will take about 10 minutes. Leave it alone until it’s done.
That’s it!
Adding ROMs & BIOS files
Connect your SD card to the PC.
Head inside the Roms folder, and you should see a bunch of folders for all of the systems that the device supports.
It should be pretty self explanatory at this point, but you want to move your ROMs for each system into the corresponding system folder.
For BIOS, head to the RetroArch folder, then .retroarch, and then system. Inside of this folder is where you would put your BIOS files.
Tweaks
- SNES (may not apply on newer FW): Currently, there’s a bug with SNES due to a filter. To remove the filter, jump into any SNES game, then open the RetroArch menu, go to Settings, Video and then remove video filter. Head back to the RetroArch menu, Overrides and Save Core Overrides.
Custom Firmware Options
Custom firmware is a replacement for the stock firmware that we setup above. If you would like to try out any custom firmware, I would recommend using a separate brand new SD card and keep your stock one just in case you want to switch back.
OnionOS
As of right now, OnionOS isn’t available for the A30. There is no timeline for when it will be, however, I will be making a video and updating this guide when or if it does come out.
Spruce
Spruce is a modified stock OS that you can install from here: https://github.com/tenlevels/spruce.
