Raspberry Pi – Creating a new SD Card

Summary

In order to function any computer needs an operating System. In the case of the Raspberry Pi this is stored on an SD card. These can be bought with an existing system on or you can add it yourself using a program which will take a file with a copy (image) of the system and write it to the card. This class walks through the process with an application called Etcher.

Equipment

  • SD card – atleast 8GB

Thinking

The process is straightforward and there are a number of programs that will enable you to do this, the advantage with Etcher is that ir runs on a lot of different platforms, so you can learn this once and it’s very similar everywhere you will want to use it.

Basic steps we’ll need to do are:

  • Download the latest image file for the system we want on our Pi
  • Download and install Etcher
  • Mount the SD card
  • Write the image to the file
  • Unmount the SD card
  • Put the SD card into the Pi and start it up

Doing

The image files are all available from the Raspberry Pi website on the download page. We prefer the Raspbian image, but you can use whichever you prefer. Click the link and then on the page displayed click to download the zip file for the image you want. If you intend to use the PI to just control things and won’t be using the windows interface then select the ‘Lite’ version, otherwise select the option with Pixel.

Once the file has downloaded locate it on your computer and unzip it.

Next we need to install Etcher. This can be downloaded from their website at https://etcher.io.

Once the file has downloaded run it and click the Install button. When the installation has completed run Etcher. It’s then a simple case of following the steps shown from left to right:

  • Click the – Select Image – button

In the window displayed navigate to the file that was just removed from the zip and double click it.

  • Insert an SD card into your computer

This should then automatically mount and the next button be highlighted.

  • Click the – Flash Image – button

The process will start and a message will be displayed once the process completes.

You can then Eject the SD card from your computer, you should use the eject function, and not just physically eject it, to ensure that the contents are saved correctly.