Raspberry Pi Diary - Refuses To Boot

Getting Nowhere

I've wasted a lot of time over the last 24 hours trying to get my 32Gb SD card formatted correctly. Today I tried loading the raspbian image file (from http://raspberrypi.org/) to the card using the 'dd' command in a terminal window.

It all looks OK yet the Raspberry Pi fails to see the card when you power it on.

A Hint at What Was Wrong

I found a few web pages that stated some SD cards just didn't work, and set about reviewing the http://www.raspberry-pi.co.uk/2012/06/07/compatible-sd-cards/ list to see if mine was supported.

But my card is a cheapo unbranded card from ebay and I wasn't able to see a brand name. Though not really conclusive, I began to suspect that this was the problem.

I gave the card to a work colleague who promised to try it out on his Raspberry Pi tonight.

Lets Try Another

In the mean time I borrowed a Kingston 8Gb card from my son (who's also keen on getting this working), carefully backing up his contents before starting work. We did exactly the same as before:-

1. Format the SD card using SDFormatter (just a quick format this time).
2. Copy the contents of the NOOBS folder onto the root of the card.
3. Clean out the dot files that the Mac OS insists on adding (using CleanDisk).

Then we removed the card from it's adapter, slid it into the Pi's microSD slot and powered it up..... It started booting (whoop!!)

The NOOBS Install Menu

It takes about 20 minutes while it alters the partitions and then installs your selected OS.

Install the OS

I'm amazed how slick the process is after that. It runs fine on my TV, and the sound even works via HDMI. Next step is to get my bluetooth dongle working. :-)