Windows and Mac OS include basic Hard Drive, USB and SD format tools, but we wouldn’t recommend using them since formatting can hinder performance of a memory device significantly. SD Card Formatter doesn’t have this fault.
noobs NOOBS New Out Of Box Software (NOOBS) is an easy operating system installation manager for the Raspberry Pi. How to get NOOBS Buy a pre-installed SD card SD cards with NOOBS preinstalled are available from many of our distributors and independent retailers, including,. Download Alternatively, NOOBS is available for download on the Raspberry Pi website: How to install NOOBS on an SD card Once you've downloaded the NOOBS zip file, you'll need to copy the contents to a formatted SD card on your computer.
To set up a blank SD card with NOOBS:. Format an SD card which is 8GB or larger as FAT. See the instructions given below.
Download and extract the files from the NOOBS zip file. Copy the extracted files onto the SD card that you just formatted, so that this file is at the root directory of the SD card. Please note that in some cases it may extract the files into a folder; if this is the case, then please copy across the files from inside the folder rather than the folder itself. On first boot, the 'RECOVERY' FAT partition will be automatically resized to a minimum, and a list of OSes that are available to install will be displayed.
How to format an SD card as FAT Note: If you're formatting an SD (or micro SD) card that has a capacity over 32GB (i.e. 64GB and above), then see the separate instructions. Windows If you are a Windows user, we recommend formatting your SD card using the SD Association's Formatting Tool, which can be downloaded from. Instructions for using the tool are available on the same site. Mac OS The is also available for Mac users, although the default OS X Disk Utility is also capable of formatting the entire disk.
To do this, select the SD card volume and choose Erase with MS-DOS format. Linux For Linux users we recommend gparted (or the command line version parted). Norman Dunbar has written up for Linux users.
What's included in NOOBS The following operating systems are currently included in NOOBS:. As of NOOBS v1.3.10 (September 2014), only Raspbian is installed by default in NOOBS. The others can be installed with a network connection.
NOOBS and NOOBS Lite NOOBS is available in two forms: offline and network install, or network install only. The full version has Raspbian included, so it can be installed from the SD card while offline, whereas using NOOBS Lite or installing any other operating system requires an internet connection. Note that the operating system image on the full version can be outdated if a new version of the OS is released, but if connected to the internet you will be shown the option of downloading the latest version if there is a newer one available. NOOBS development Latest NOOBS release The latest NOOBS release is v3.0.0, released on 16th November 2018. (From NOOBS v1.4.0 onwards, NOOBS Lite only shares the first two digits of the version number, i.e.
V1.4) NOOBS documentation More comprehensive documentation, including more advanced configuration of NOOBS, is available on. NOOBS source code See the NOOBS source code on.
Sometimes it is a good idea to get a fresh start with an originally blank microSD / SD card, assuming no valuable charts or singularly irreplaceable data is stored on the card. You may do this by resetting the file system on the card which removes all existing files. Computers with Windows and Mac OS X have built-in utilities to format microSD or SD (or other media type) cards. These may be adequate for your use and there are some web sites you can find with searches such as 'How to format SD card on Windows' which will explain the method. An alternative is to use a free simple app provided by the SD Card manufacturer's organization. Download and install the Windows or Mac app at the bottom of this web page: The web site also posts nice simple PDF 'how to' documents on using their formatter utilities. Follow the instructions in those documents. Generally, you will want to do a full and thorough reformat of an SD card, not the 'Quick Format' option.
![Micro sd format tool Micro sd format tool](/uploads/1/2/5/3/125393251/674295015.png)
The SD card format chosen should (preferably) be simply ' FAT' (file allocation table, 16 bit); otherwise accept FAT32. So far, in our Fugawi related purposes, we have had no use for the exFAT file format system. Formatting as FAT provides the greatest range of compatibility (disregarding efficiency / optimization), at least for cards with a capacity 32 GB or less. If you really must use a built-in Windows method, right-click the correct drive letter representing the microSD or SD card and select Format. Select FAT or FAT32 from the drop-down menu (never choose NTFS, or Mac OS Extended). Enter an arbitrary name for the card, and un-check / de-select the Quick Format option so a full format is done instead. Formatting may take a minute or more.
If any error messages prevent formatting, the microSD / SD card in use may be problematic and so another card should be tried. And on Mac OS X, you use the standard app at Finder Applicatons Disk Utility to format an SD card.