Raspberry Pi Forums

I tried to format an 8gb Lexar class 10 SD card under windows 7 using SDFORMATTER 4 and received the message: "Drive Not Supported". Is it really necessary to use this utility? What are my other choices? If I have no other choice - what do I need to get the drive to be recognized by SDFORMATTER?

mgreen wrote:I tried to format an 8gb Lexar class 10 SD card under windows 7 using SDFORMATTER 4 and received the message: "Drive Not Supported". Is it really necessary to use this utility? What are my other choices? If I have no other choice - what do I need to get the drive to be recognized by SDFORMATTER?

Are you putting your SDHC card into a "card slot" in your PC or using an external SDHC compatible USB stick reader/writer? Or is the card actually SDXC? Not all "built-in" card slots are fully compatible with larger/faster SDHC/SDXC cards and that could be why the SDA's formatting program is complaining. Whilst you may be able to format the card in a camera instead, if it is a "hardware issue" you may still have problems writing NOOBS or an O.S. image to the card.
Trev.

Thanks so much for your response, Trevor. If you mean by "hardware issue" there is something wrong with the card itself, I just bought the card, and this problem happened with another SD card I have. Since the SD card is new and presumably already formatted, what do you think is the risk if I attempt to load NOOBS or another OS image onto the card?

FTrevorGowen wrote:

mgreen wrote:I tried to format an 8gb Lexar class 10 SD card under windows 7 using SDFORMATTER 4 and received the message: "Drive Not Supported". Is it really necessary to use this utility? What are my other choices? If I have no other choice - what do I need to get the drive to be recognized by SDFORMATTER?

Are you putting your SDHC card into a "card slot" in your PC or using an external SDHC compatible USB stick reader/writer? Or is the card actually SDXC? Not all "built-in" card slots are fully compatible with larger/faster SDHC/SDXC cards and that could be why the SDA's formatting program is complaining. Whilst you may be able to format the card in a camera instead, if it is a "hardware issue" you may still have problems writing NOOBS or an O.S. image to the card.
Trev.

Oh and sorry Trevor - in answer to your first question - I am using my laptop SD reader/writer. I don't have an external USB device for the SD card that works.

mgreen wrote:Thanks so much for your response, Trevor. If you mean by "hardware issue" there is something wrong with the card itself, I just bought the card, and this problem happened with another SD card I have. Since the SD card is new and presumably already formatted, what do you think is the risk if I attempt to load NOOBS or another OS image onto the card?
...

By "hardware issue" I meant the, in your case built-in, card reader/writer being incompatible with the SDHC (or, newer, SDXC) type of cards. When SDHC cards were first released they were sometimes supplied with an external card reader marked SDHC because compatible devices were going to be used for cameras before being supplied to the "computer makers" IIRC. I have two that were supplied with my first two integral 4Gb cards.
Pre-formatted, or Windows formatted, cards may not be "fully formatted" according to SDA specs. and may possibly give rise to issues with NOOBS. Hence the recommendation to use the SDA formatter. When I used aLinux tool, GParted to perform the same task, I noticed that some of the "pre-formatted" card space appeared to have not been formatted (see: http://www.cpmspectrepi.webspace.virgin ... reparation ) However, so long as there are no files already on the "pre-formatted" card (some come with "tools" installed), I think it's probably O.K. to give NOOBS a try. There's no issue when a "direct O.S. image" (via a *.img file) is written since the process requires a "raw write" that overrides any existing formatting & partitioning.
Trev.

mgreen wrote:Oh and sorry Trevor - in answer to your first question - I am using my laptop SD reader/writer. I don't have an external USB device for the SD card that works.

The recommendation in that case is to buy a USB SD card reader. They can be picked up very cheaply, and tend to be much more reliable than internal / built-in SD slots.

Edit: Make sure you get one compatible with SDHC cards - most are nowadays.

Thanks again Trevor. I may just give noobs on it in any case.

I did some more research and found instructions to format it instead via Linux (my Ubuntu laptop has an SD slot). The link is:

http://qdosmsq.dunbar-it.co.uk/blog/201 ... pberry-pi/

I have followed the instructions. So far so good. I am downloading the noobs zip right now. Will report back if I am able to use the SD in the pi.

thanks again all.

mgreen wrote:I did some more research and found instructions to format it instead via Linux (my Ubuntu laptop has an SD slot). The link is:

http://qdosmsq.dunbar-it.co.uk/blog/201 ... pberry-pi/

I have followed the instructions. So far so good. I am downloading the noobs zip right now. Will report back if I am able to use the SD in the pi.

thanks again all.

Without following the link (I'm being lazy this morning) I guess you used either one of the "command-line" partitioning/formatting tools or the GParted GUI tool like I do here: http://www.cpmspectrepi.webspace.virgin ... stall.html (As you see I also use Ubuntu)
Trev.

I used fdisk. Using ubuntu linux - it all worked like a charm. I am now up and running with OpenElec : XBMC, Raspbian, and Rasbmc choices. My usb wifi device was to my delight plug and play with XBMC and Raspbian. (not so with raspbmc - but I'll leave that mystery to another day). So mission accomplished. I can watch stored home movies on my HDTV, play my music and view pictures from my samba shared devices. I think I'll format a couple more SD cards and play with the other OS's.

FTrevorGowen wrote:

mgreen wrote:I did some more research and found instructions to format it instead via Linux (my Ubuntu laptop has an SD slot). The link is:

http://qdosmsq.dunbar-it.co.uk/blog/201 ... pberry-pi/

I have followed the instructions. So far so good. I am downloading the noobs zip right now. Will report back if I am able to use the SD in the pi.

thanks again all.

Without following the link (I'm being lazy this morning) I guess you used either one of the "command-line" partitioning/formatting tools or the GParted GUI tool like I do here: http://www.cpmspectrepi.webspace.virgin ... stall.html (As you see I also use Ubuntu)
Trev.

I'm having this exact problem where the program says "This drive is not supported", but I don't have the advantage of using Linux until I get the pi working.
Few facts: Its a kingston 16gb sdhc card brand new, I can write read files to it just fine using windows 10 on my new HP laptop, just off the factory formatting. From what I read reformatting this card is a must as I think FAT file systems are a windows thing.

Cant find anything on the web. .

You don't have the same problem. Start a new thread and describe in detail what you're trying to achieve and how it's failing. That's better than resurrecting an ancient old thread that doesn't describe your problem.

bubblegumpi wrote:I'm having this exact problem where the program says "This drive is not supported", but I don't have the advantage of using Linux until I get the pi working.
Few facts: Its a kingston 16gb sdhc card brand new, I can write read files to it just fine using windows 10 on my new HP laptop, just off the factory formatting. From what I read reformatting this card is a must as I think FAT file systems are a windows thing.
Cant find anything on the web. .

DougieLawson wrote:You don't have the same problem. Start a new thread and describe in detail what you're trying to achieve and how it's failing. That's better than resurrecting an ancient old thread that doesn't describe your problem.

Whilst @DougieLawson is probably correct, FWIW, you may find these notes/screenshots about the method that does not require the card to be formatted** of interest:
https://www.cpmspectrepi.uk/raspberry_p ... Win10.html
Trev.
**ie. by writing an O.S. image rather than using the NOOBS installer based approached. This uses different tools which worked O.K. for me on an old Windows 7 netbook, updated to Windows 10 but I did use an external, USB, card reader (not the built-in slot)

DougieLawson wrote:You don't have the same problem. Start a new thread and describe in detail what you're trying to achieve and how it's failing. That's better than resurrecting an ancient old thread that doesn't describe your problem.

Sorry, I'm new to the forum and just discovered what a RPi was a week ago! Will repost