Etcher finishing with errors when flashing SD card.

[Flare]

I'm trying to flash the latest Raspbian image, but each time I try Etcher says something went wrong.

I've tried the full and lite versions of Stretch, and I've verified that the image checksums match.

I've also tried the installer and portable versions of Etcher and I've even tried running them on a different PC, but I keep getting errors on all three of my cards; Two of which I bought just yesterday thinking it might have been a problem with the first card.


Is there something else I can try or am I not the only one having this issue?

[B.Goode]

I think I am right to say that Etcher simply writes the content of a file to a usb device.

Etcher does not know or care what the content of the file is.

If Etcher reports a failure to write correctly it almost certainly means that it has detected that the contents of the target device after writing do not correspond with the content of the original file. Which is Not Good. So it reports an error. Which is Good.

For more details, perhaps ask in the ResinIO/Etcher forums.

There is also a member of the Etcher Support team who is a regular member of these forums and your query might come to his attention.

Logically, this seems to suggest that either the target cards, or the interfaces used to write them, are faulty or failing.

Many experienced users in these forums have moved to using Etcher as their tool of choice - what you are seeing is not usual or to be expected.

[fruitoftheloom]

I'm trying to flash the latest Raspbian image, but each time I try Etcher says something went wrong.

I've tried the full and lite versions of Stretch, and I've verified that the image checksums match.

I've also tried the installer and portable versions of Etcher and I've even tried running them on a different PC, but I keep getting errors on all three of my cards; Two of which I bought just yesterday thinking it might have been a problem with the first card.


Is there something else I can try or am I not the only one having this issue?

Yes but are using a SDHC Card Reader ??

[youkiddin]

what version of etcher are you using, I had the same problem yesterday . After my card failed to write twice I updated to version 1.1.2 and it worked first time.

[Flare]

I'm using etcher version 1.1.2

My card readers have never had trouble with large cards before, but I bought a new card reader that's SDHC compatible and I'm still getting errors.

I even tried it with a USB stick, and got an error on that too.

[imrehg]

Hi, are you using Etcher on Windows, right? Which Windows version if so?
Could you open the debug console by pressing "Ctrl+Alt+i" and selecting the Console, and see whether there are any useful error messages there.

Also, you might check out the Etcher chatroom where the developers are as well, so they can answer any questions first hand, at https://gitter.im/resin-io/etcher

[Flare]

I'm using Windows 10 64-bit.

Here's what Etcher says at the end of the console:

Code: Select all

Oct 30 2017 19:41:23 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time) Select image ({"path":"C:\\Users\\legen\\Downloads\\UZ\\2017-09-07-raspbian-stretch\\2017-09-07-raspbian-stretch.img","extension":"img","size":{"original":4916019200,"final":{"estimation":false,"value":4916019200}},"hasMBR":true,"hasGPT":false,"partitions":[{"type":12,"id":null,"name":null,"firstLBA":8192,"lastLBA":93815,"extended":false},{"type":131,"id":null,"name":null,"firstLBA":94208,"lastLBA":9601600,"extended":false},{"type":0,"id":null,"name":null,"firstLBA":0,"lastLBA":0,"extended":false},{"type":0,"id":null,"name":null,"firstLBA":0,"lastLBA":0,"extended":false}],"logo":false,"bmap":false})

[HawaiianPi]

I used Etcher 1.1.2 under Windows 10 x64 today to image cards several times with no trouble whatsoever. I have found Etcher to be extremely reliable, even back when it was beta. What you are experiencing is definitely not normal.

Are you extracting the images prior to writing, or just choosing the Raspbian .zip file and letting Etcher extract it while writing?

What kind of Anti Virus/Anti Malware software are you using? Perhaps you could disconnect from the Internet and test writing a card with your security software disabled.

There are some utilities that can test the integrity of flash media. FFF (Fight Fake Flash) is the first one that comes to mind. There's another one called H2testw, and one called Chip Genius that can even give you info about the make/model of the hardware. I suggest you grab at least one of those and verify the integrity of your SD cards. Note that the tests take a long time and are destructive to data, so backup anything you need from the cards before testing.

[stormdrain]

I had the same problem when writing the OS to a flash drive. I tried a second time - no luck. I switched usb ports - no luck. I reformatted the flash drive - no luck. I ran a W10 disk error check on the drive - no luck. I downloaded a new copy of the compressed OS file - no luck. Finally, I wondered of the problem was with usb 3, so I switched to a usb 2 port AND IT WORKED!

The 32G SanDisk drive is probably usb 2, and putting it into a usb 3 port is supposed to recognize it is a usb 2 device and SLOW DOWN, but I suspect some of us are unknowingly overclocking what the poor little stick can reliably handle!

Hope this works for you too, and hope the folks at Etcher can adapt.