Size limit for micro SD card?

[tgiro]

Tried using a 64Gb chip and the device won't load NOOBS from it. Is there a size limit on the SD chip?

[fruitoftheloom]

Tried using a 64Gb chip and the device won't load NOOBS from it. Is there a size limit on the SD chip?

What file system on the SD Card ? it needs to be FAT32 and not exFAT

[drgeoff]

Cards >= 64 Gbyte come formatted as exFAT which (current) NOOBS cannot use.

Use the utility at http://tokiwa.qee.jp/EN/Fat32Formatter/ to convert to FAT32 before copy NOOBS files to the card.

[tgiro]

I should have said this earlier - apologies -

I formatted the chip with the SD formatter with the "Full Overwrite" option on. I have since read that the "Format Size Adjustment" option should be on - and - the chip should be labeled. So reformatting, will reload the root files & directories & try again.

Does the SD Formatter put the fat32 format on the chip or do I still need to run the Fat32formatter?

Thanks for the help.

[drgeoff]

Does the SD Formatter put the fat32 format on the chip or do I still need to run the Fat32formatter?

I expect that SD Formatter will put exFAT on a 64 Gbyte card. However there should be a window at the end of the operation which will show the card status. See Fig 3 in the manual https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/format ... ter_4e.pdf

[mahjongg]

first run the official formatter, which will not only format it, but will also remove superfluous partitions, if the formatter happened to have used exFAt, then use the FAT32FORMATTER to re-format (convert) the single exFAT partition to FAT32.

[tgiro]

interestinger & interestinger -

Tried both the 64bit & 32bit Windows 7 machines. The Fat32formatter see's the drive & allows it to be initialized, but when I try to run a format, I get a message that says "Failed to determine the drive". I tried using the Fat32Formatter on an 8Gb chip and got the same message. Initializing the drive does wipe the existing format off the chip.

I tried the Fat32Formatter routines with & without the "debug" option.

I'm moving the operation over to my MacBook and see what results I get there. If nothing else, I may be able to format it through the Netbsd OS - not the MacOS.

Since I have the Rpi running off the NOOBS chip that came with the kit, Can I format a chip with that? I can format chips on PC's running Debian. Just don't have any installed right now.

Thanks for the assistance and the quick returns.

[RSvedman]

You can use ther running (raspbian?) system on the pi to format the card, provided you have a usb cardreader to plug into the pi (and a free port for it) just like on any other debian system.

[DirkS]

You can use ther running (raspbian?) system on the pi to format the card, provided you have a usb cardreader to plug into the pi (and a free port for it) just like on any other debian system.

Of coourse the problem is that at least 99 out of 100 new Pi users are most likely using Win or Mac and have no idea how to do that on debian...
Also, if it's the first Pi that wouldn't be a solution anyway.

[AndrewS]

Cards >= 64 Gbyte come formatted as exFAT which (current) NOOBS cannot use.

Unfortunately NOOBS will never be able to boot from exFAT cards, as it's actually the early-startup (very minimal) firmware hard-wired into every BCM2835 SoC that is only able to load bootcode.bin from a FAT-formatted partition (and without bootcode.bin, nothing else can load).

If the mentioned Fat32Formatter isn't working for you, you could also try http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index. ... format.htm and try using a different (USB) SD card-reader if you haven't already.