Saturday, 3 March 2012

Creating an SD Card

So - a bit of catching up to do.  Following a lot of input from everyone at the Raspberry Pi Forums (http://www.raspberrypi.org/forum), I've come up with a step-by-step process for applying the latest Raspberry Pi Debian image to an SD card.

Pre-requisitesStep 1 - Download the Raspberry Pi Debian image – http://downloads.raspberrypi.org/images/debian/6/debian6-17-02-2012/debian6-17-02-2012.zip
Step 2 - Download Win32DiskImager - https://launchpad.net/win32-image-writer/+download
Step 3 - Extract Win32DiskImager to a convenient location


Applying the image
Step 1 - Browse to c:\program files\Win32DiskImager (or relevant installation location).  Note the drive letter assigned to the SD Card (E: in the image below)


Step 2 - Double-click on the Win32DiskImager application (Win32DiskImager.exe)
Step 3 - Select the drive identified in Step 1 above in the Device list


Step 4 - Click the Open Folder button



Step 5 - Browse to the location you saved the image in (c:\temp in the image below), select it and click the Save button (incorrect button name)


Step 6 - OPTIONAL: To check the hash of the image, click the MD5 Hash checkbox.  The label will change to “MD5 Hash: Generating…” as shown below


Step 7 - One the hash has been generated it will be displayed as shown below:

NOTE: this is the MD5 Hash, not the SHA1 as provided by Raspberry Pi foundation

Step 8 - Click the Write button – you will be prompted with a warning (shown below) – click Yes:


Step 9 - The process will start, displaying a progress bar


Step 10 - Be patient – it might take a while


Step 11 - Keep waiting – the % value increasing means it’s working!
 

Step 12 - NOTE: Once the process has completed there will be no confirmation – the screen will simply return to the initial screen:

Step 13 - Once the process has finished the SD Card will appear as a FAT32 partition – 74.4MB in total, with 46.9MB free
 

Step 14 - The partition will contain 10 files as shown below:

Step 15 - If reviewing the card in Computer Manager you will see the three partitions, with an amount of unallocated space (on this 2GB SD Card it is 27MB – this will vary from card to card, even two cards of the same size):



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16 comments:

  1. Unknown30 May 2012 at 13:58

    After this is it as easy as just plug it in and boot it up?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tass30 May 2012 at 14:54

      Yes, that's it - put the SD card in, give it power and that's it!

      Delete
  2. Carolina y Juan Carlos6 June 2012 at 16:03

    I have a problem, I can not see any devices in to select the target of the immage.

    I can see my SD card in My PC

    I have follow the instructions.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Unknown9 June 2012 at 12:24

      I had the same problem and found the answer on a raspberry pi forum- my laptop internal card reader was not recognised by Win32diskimager. There is a discussion about this on the launchpad.net website. Fortunately the card reader on my main computer was recognised. The alternative is to use an external card reader

      Delete
  3. Unknown9 June 2012 at 12:22

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Tass10 June 2012 at 00:25

    Yes, I've seen this issue in my laptop - I can see the card give in Windows but W32DI just won't see it. DD seems to get around this. Take a look here:

    myraspberrypiexperience.blogspot.co.uk/p/using-dd-for-windows.html?m=1

    ReplyDelete
  5. friend27 August 2012 at 16:17

    HI,
    Thanks for posting such a detailed explaination. Can you please post on how to increase the partition when we use more than 4GB SD card. I have 8GB card.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tass27 August 2012 at 16:34

      Hey friend - not too sure as I've never actually used an 8GB card, but from what I've read you can use GParted - a very good partition utility shipped with most Linux distros. I'll take a look and try post some details

      Delete
  6. Unknown28 November 2012 at 19:09

    every time I extract on win xp the win32diskmager I am getting a error#1
    incorrect function...any one any idea what I am doing wrong?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tass29 November 2012 at 13:20

      Not quite sure I follow you - do you mean you get that error when you try extract the file? My guess is that your download is corrupt - delete it and try download it again. If that doesn't work, try using DD for Windows. It's a little more manual, but works very well. Take a look here:
      http://myraspberrypiexperience.blogspot.co.uk/p/using-dd-for-windows.html

      Delete
  7. ali naqvi6 February 2013 at 23:48

    This is stunning post...i love it..!!! thanks for sharing...Plastic cards.!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  8. ali naqvi8 March 2013 at 22:40

    It's marvelous work....i will try these idea for my plastic card..thanks for sharing..!!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Capt 201326 April 2013 at 05:53

    When I try out write the '2013-02-09-wheezy-raspbian.img' onto 8GB SDHC card using Win32DiskImager, i get "Write error - An error occurred when attempting to write data to handle. Error 121 : The semaphore timeout period has expired". pls help!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tass26 April 2013 at 15:44

      Hi Capt 2013

      I can't be sure about this error, but I have found Win32DiskImager to have some issues on certain cards and certain operating systems.

      My suggestion would be to take a look at using a utility called DD - http://myraspberrypiexperience.blogspot.co.uk/p/using-dd-for-windows.html

      It's a little more manual, but I've found to works every time!

      Delete
  10. KRappyDO4 August 2013 at 09:13

    need an alternative to win32diskimager for windows systems with internal card readers ASAP!!!

    this is a MAJOR PITA.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tass4 August 2013 at 13:00

      Take a look here:
      http://myraspberrypiexperience.blogspot.co.uk/p/using-dd-for-windows.html

      It's a little more manual, but is pretty bullet proof.

      Delete

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