Preparing your SD card

In order for your Raspberry Pi to run, you’ll need to load the Raspberry Pi Operating System (formerly known as Raspbian) onto an SD card. There are other operating systems you can use, but we’ll be using the full version of the Raspberry Pi OS on this course.

If you bought a Raspberry Pi kit, it may have already come with a simple operating system installer called NOOBS, loaded onto an SD card. If you choose to use that card to install Raspberry Pi OS, you can skip the rest of this step; I’ll explain how to install Raspberry Pi OS using NOOBS later.

We recommend using the Raspberry Pi Imager software on your desktop computer or laptop (Windows, macOS, or Ubuntu) to prepare your SD card. This step will take you through the process of preparing an SD card using the Raspberry Pi Imager.

You will need

You will need to have a way to connect this card to your desktop computer or laptop.

Many laptops will have a microSD slot
If your desktop or laptop only has a larger SD card slot, you will need an adapter for the microSD card to fit into; microSD cards are often sold with this adapter
If your desktop or laptop doesn’t have an SD card slot, you will need to buy a USB SD card adapter

Formatting your SD card

This process will overwrite all data on the SD card, so back up any important files first. Most operating systems have their own disk formatting tool, but we recommend using the SD Association’s Formatter if you are using Windows or a Mac.

Visit the SD Association’s website and download SD Formatter 5.0 for Windows or Mac
Follow the instructions to install the software
Insert your SD card into the computer’s SD card reader and make a note of the drive letter allocated to it in Windows, e.g. F:/; in Mac OS X, the drive will be allocated a number, for example disk6; you can identify the disk and its allocated number by opening Disk Utility
In SD Formatter, select the drive letter or number for your SD card, and format it

Downloading and launching the Raspberry Pi Imager

Visit the Raspberry Pi downloads page
Click on the link for the Raspberry Pi Imager that matches your operating system

When the download finishes, click on it to launch the installer

Using the Raspberry Pi Imager

When you launch the installer, your operating system may try to block you from running it. For example, Windows may give the following message:

If you get this, click on More info and then Run anyway
Insert your SD card into the computer’s SD card slot

Note: In this course, you will want to explore a wide range of software, so you will choose the full version of Raspberry Pi OS and not the recommended version that appears at the top of the list.

In the Raspberry Pi Imager, click on Operating System and select Raspberry Pi OS (Other)

In the next dialog box, pick Raspberry Pi OS Full

Select the SD card you would like to install it on; different platforms will display the drives in different ways—Mac OS, for example, will show you all drives, including your main operating system

Note: Make sure you are selecting the correct drive. The drive’s memory capacity can be a useful indicator of which drive you are selecting.

Once you have selected both the OS and the SD card, a new WRITE button will appear.

Click the WRITE button
Wait for the Raspberry Pi Imager to finish writing

Once you get the following message, your SD card has been safely ejected and you can remove it from the computer
But we are not going to just yet. The next step will set up the Pi onto our network and allow us to control it from our computers remotely.

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