How to Install Raspberry Pi Operating System on SD Card

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Updated by Sherly on Oct 13, 2023 

Written by Jean 

Workable Solutions	Step-by-step Troubleshooting
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...Full steps
Format SD Card to FAT16 or FAT32 for Raspberry Pi 1,2,3	Step 1. Find your SD card and right-click the partition you want to format and choose "Format"...Full steps

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:

Raspbian
NOOBS
UBUNTU MATE
SNAPPY UBUNTU CORE
WINDOWS 10 IOT CORE
OSMC
LIBREELEC
PINET
RISC OS
WEATHER STATION

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 4. Click "Write" and wait for the writing process to complete.

Step 5. 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/

Further Reading: Raspberry Pi SD Card Benchmark

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 free partition manager to format an SD card large than 32GB to FAT32 or convert exFAT to FAT32 on Windows 10, 8, 7, XP, or Vista.

Download EaseUS FREE partition manager and follow the guide below to format your SD card.

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 Warning: Formatting will erase all data on the memory card. Be sure that all the important data has been transferred to a safe spot.

Step 1. Find your SD card and right-click the partition you want to format and choose "Format".

Step 2. Set a new partition label, file system (NTFS/FAT32/EXT2/EXT3/EXT4/exFAT), and cluster size to the selected partition, then click "OK".

Step 3. Click "Yes" on the pop-up window to continue.

Step 4. Click the "Execute 1 Task(s)" button on the toolbar, then click "Apply" to start formatting your SD card.

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About the Author

Updated by Sherly 

Sherly joined EaseUS in 2022 and she has always loved writing articles and enjoys the fun they bring. She receives professional training here, focusing on product performance and other relative knowledge. She has written over 200 articles to help people overcome computing issues.

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Written by Jean 

Jean is recognized as one of the most professional writers in EaseUS. She has kept improving her writing skills over the past 10 years and helped millions of her readers solve their tech problems on PC, Mac, and iOS devices.

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