The worst thing a gaming OS can do is lose your saves. HippOS is built around one principle: the system layer and the user data layer are completely separate. Updating or reflashing the OS never touches your games, saves, or configuration.

How the partition layout works

HippOS uses two main partitions. The system partition holds the OS, emulator binaries, and everything that ships with HippOS. The data partition — mounted at /userdata — holds everything that belongs to you.

When an OS update lands, it replaces the system partition entirely. The data partition is never written to during an update. Your ROMs, saves, BIOS files, screenshots, themes, and emulator configs are exactly where you left them.

What lives in /userdata

/userdata/
  roms/          your ROM library (one folder per system)
  saves/         emulator save files
  bios/          BIOS and firmware files
  screenshots/   screenshots from EmulationStation and emulators
  system/        emulator configs, input maps, HippOS settings
  themes/        EmulationStation themes

Everything EmulationStation and the emulators need to find your library and remember your settings points here. You can also drop ROMs on a USB drive or a second internal disk — HippOS uses mergerfs to pool multiple storage locations into a single unified library. EmulationStation sees one ROM collection regardless of where the files actually live.

Reflash without losing anything

Because the data partition is separate, you can reflash HippOS from a fresh image and pick up exactly where you left off. Plug in the drive that holds your /userdata data and EmulationStation finds your library on first boot. No re-copying ROMs, no reconfiguring controllers.