Saturday, November 10, 2018

Raspberry Pi - Setup Using Raspbian Image

Apart from doing setup using NOOBS. We have an option of writing the Raspbian directly on the SD Card. This post covers how to do the same on Windows.

Actually I find this quite simple and easy to use as compared to NOOBS. It is just a two step process.
1 - Get Official Raspbian Image
2 - Install and Use Win32 Disk Imager to write to the SD Card


Step - 1 Get the Latest Raspbian Image

The simplest way to get the latest Raspbian Image to download it directly from the official websites download page. The link to the same is here. You will get a zip file which you can extract using 7zip and get the image file.
Raspbian Image with Stretch Desktop as downloaded from raspberrypi.org

Step - 2 Get and Install the Win32 Disk Imager

To be honest from my side i already used this to create bootable disks hence i am going with this. You can also try out etcher and other openly available tools. You can download the Win32 Disk Imager from sourceforge.

After installation you need to open it and select the physical drive in my case E: and the image to be written on the physical drive. Same is highlighted in the image below.
Select the image and the physical drive
After this its simple. You need first write the image to the physical drive and then verify.
As mine already has a seperate image on it it is asking for this. Select Yes.
Image Writing Starts
When the writing starts the GUI updates by showing the speed at the bottom left, Time on the bottom right, progress bar and progress percentage.

After writing is successful there is an additional step of verify that can be performed that will read from the SD card and verify against the provided image. Most of the time it is successful. Most of the time.

Step - 3 Thats It!

Actually it is just a two step process you burn the image you want to use and you are ready to go.

Now when to use this?
Certain applications (Most of the time incorrect design of applications our fault) Chances of corrupting the SD Card is high. So sometime we need to reflash it. So what i do is i create a new distribution of raspbian with all the essential software installed and an image of it. This is the image i used to rewrite the SD Card and voila my raspberry pi is restored to what i was working with before the card corruption. Saving time. 

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