When working with a Raspberry Pi, you will need to format an SD Card to boot the Raspberry Pi the first time. The most straight forward way to get the Raspberry Pi Operating System (OS), Raspbian, onto an SD Card is to use the Raspberry Pi Imager software. It may be downloaded by visiting https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/.
There are alternative methods for flashing the OS to an SD Card, such as balenaEtcher, but they will not be covered in this guide.
Materials Needed
- SD Card – Most Raspberry Pi boards use microSD cards. The original Raspberry Pi boards used a full-size SD card.
- PC with SD Card Reader – This may be Linux, Windows, or Mac.
- Optional – If your PC has only a full size SD Card reader, you will need a microSD to SD card adapter.
Steps for Flashing the SD Card
Once you have Raspberry Pi Imager installed, you may follow the steps below to flash the OS to the SD Card.
- Click the “Choose Device” button and select the Raspberry Pi model from the list. In the following examples, “Raspberry Pi 3” will be used. Replace “Raspberry Pi 3” to match your Raspberry Pi board.
- Click the “Choose OS” button and select “Raspberry Pi OS (64-bit)”.
NOTE: Raspberry Pi 1 and 2 as well as Raspberry Pi Zero and Zero W only support 32-bit OS. For those models, select 32-bit OS rather than a 64-bit OS. (64-bit should not be an option if one of those devices are selected.)
- Click the “Choose Storage” button and select the SD Card from the list.
- Click the “Next” button and follow the prompts. Once the card is validated and you receive a confirmation message that the image has been written to the SD Card, remove the card from the computer and move it to the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W board and power it on.
