Install Raspberry Pi Operating System on SD Card
Overview of Raspberry Pi
Raspberry Pi is a series of small single-board computers developed by the Raspberry Pi Foundation in association with Broadcom. It comes with no operating system, you can opt to fill the Raspberry Pi with 100% customized OS, which is usually done by burning an operating system image file you've downloaded to an SD card.
Here's the Raspberry Pi operating system list:
- UBUNTU MATE
- NOOBS
- WINDOWS 10 IOT CORE
- SNAPPY UBUNTU CORE
- OSMC
- PINET
- LIBREELEC
- RISC OS
- WEATHER STATION
- Raspbian
Full Guide to Install Raspberry Pi OS on SD Card
This guide mainly focuses on how to accomplish the Raspberry Pi OS installation on a Windows PC. All you need is an SD card and a card reader. Follow the detailed guide below, to install OS on the SD card on your own.
How to Install Raspberry Pi Operating System on PC
Step 1. Download and install the latest version of the Raspberry Pi Imager.
Step 2. Insert your SD card into the computer with a card reader or an adapter.
Step 3. Open Raspberry Pi Imager and choose the required OS from the list presented.
Step 4. In the device box, select the correct SD card.
Step 5. Click "Write" and wait for the writing process to complete.
Step 6. Exit the imager and eject the SD card.
Another recommend Imager is Win32DiskImager, you can choose the one you like.
Download source: https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/
Format SD Card to FAT16 or FAT32 for Raspberry Pi 1,2,3
Your SD card should be prepared in FAT files system, let it be either FAT16 or FAT32, not including large capacity SDHC or SDXC cards which with an exFAT file system. To set up a fully compatible SD card for Raspberry Pi, use the recommended SD card formatting tool to format an SD card large than 32GB to FAT32 or convert exFAT to FAT32 on Windows 10, 8, 7, XP, or Vista.
Download Qiling Free partition manager and follow the guide below to format your SD card.
Step 1: Launch Qiling Partition Master. On the Disk management window, select the partition on your SD card and click "Format".
Step 2: Set a new partition label, file system (NTFS/FAT32/EXT2/EXT3), and cluster size to the selected partition, and click "Proceed" to continue.
Format C Drive with Windows Setup or External Storage Media
It is a convenient way to format C drive with this method. You can format C drive this way - using Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, or Windows Vista installation media. Here are the steps to format C drive:
Step 1. Boot with the Windows Setup Disc. Place the CD in the optical hard drive and follow the instructions.
Step 2. Select the language you want to use and select "Next".
Step 3. Click "Install Now" and wait until it finishes. This process isn't really installing the Windows OS.
Step 4. Accept the terms and conditions and select "Next".
Step 5. Go to the Custom (advanced) option. You will see a list of all the existing drives. Click "Drive options (advanced)".
Step 6. Select "Format". Now, Windows will start the process of formatting your drive.
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