Raspberry Pi Forums

Hi, first off I'm a newbee to the Pi and Linux, and normally use a Windows 8.1 Laptop.
Ok, so I understand about the setting up of the SD card initially, and copying NooBs on to the Blank card....
It goes through it's process of setting up and it's great....

Here's my problem (and I think allot of other people might have this to). Being new to it all we make mistakes, and the learning curve goes up a notch. But I'd like to re-install a fresh copy of NooBs on the SD card and start from scratch... But the OS for the Pi clearly alters the Partition on the card to suit it's OS. Now try as I might, my 4Gb SD card seems to have about 68Mb or so space that I can actually access, the rest is locked away, and I can't seem to get it back. It would be really good if someone could guide us through the process of getting the SD cards back to what the PC sees as normal so we can start from scratch.
Many thanks for your help..

You need to reformat it as per the instructions. Download the SD card Formatter and select size overwrite (or something like that) and click format. There are instruction for this in the getting started page. http://www.raspberrypi.org/help/noobs-setup/
Read the section of that says formay your SD card

The joys of crippled Redmond operating systems.....

If you have a camera, formatting the card in a camera can be a quick way to get the full 4GB (or 8GB) back.

Else running https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/format ... tterv4.zip with FORMAT SIZE ADJUSTMENT ON is the "crippled Redmond" way of doing it.

Why Windows should recognise an ext2/3/4 filesystem when it can't be used by Windows is beyond me and not a sign that Windows is in any way crippled.