SD card preparation

The Raspberry Pi can only boot from a FAT32 or FAT16-formatted disk, however some operating systems such as Windows make it difficult to format larger disks with a FAT32 file system as it is considered a "legacy" format and not really designed for large partitions.

On this page you can find some workarounds for formatting large SD cards as FAT32.

Windows

Windows' built-in format GUI will only allow you to format disks greater than 32GB with the NTFS or exFAT file systems; neither of which are suitable for booting a Raspberry Pi.

One of the easiest tools to use to format a large FAT32 partition is guiformat by Ridgecrop Consultants.

When there is a single existing partition

If there is one existing partition on the SD card and you just want to reformat it as FAT32:

1. Launch guiformat.
2. Select the SD card's partition, accept the default allocation size and leave "Quick Format" checked - there's no need to do a full format.
3. Click Start, and wait for your SD card to be formatted.
4. You can now proceed with the rest of the quick-start guide in the main README.

When there are multiple partitions or the state of the card is unknown

If your card has previously been used for a Linux installation it may have multiple partitions on it. To erase the card completely and reformat it with a single large FAT32 partition:

1. Launch an elevated Command Prompt (Start --> type "Command" --> right-click and select "Run as Administrator").
2. Type diskpart and press Enter, followed by list disk and Enter again.
3. Find the SD card in the list (check the Size column carefully), and type select disk followed by the number of the disk (e.g. select disk 2), and press Enter.
   • Double-check you have the correct disk! Do not continue if you are unsure, as you may erase a PC disk and lose data!
4. Type clean, press Enter, and wait for a few seconds. This will erase the partition table from the card.
5. Type create part primary, and press Enter.
6. Type list part and press Enter. You now have a single partition covering the entire SD card.
7. Type exit and press Enter.
8. Launch guiformat.
9. Select the SD card's partition, accept the default allocation size and leave "Quick Format" checked - there's no need to do a full format.
10. Click Start, and wait for your SD card to be formatted.
11. You can now proceed with the rest of the quick-start guide in the main README.