patience

[johnleach2000]

Just been given a Pi and trying to get it going....
I am having difficulty in getting the operating sytem onto the SD card, and whilst I think it said it completed the operation successfully, I cannot see the files via my XP computer. Question - can you see the OS with the XP and or Win7 computer. (Because I cannot)
The SD cards seem after attempting to fet the OS on the cards to be made invisable to the XP computer and after a struggle managed to reformat them. Somebody said a camera will format them, but the SD cards with images put on them via computer is not being read by one of the cameras, so I am cautious about if the card has been formatted properly.
I have 2 cards, one 2G and another 14G
The 14G is ADATA class 4 from Maplins who said it was the card type to use.
The 2G is from a Cannon camera
The 14G has pictures on it that can be read on a Win 7 computer but is not being seen by the XP, whereas it was originally flashed and supposidly successfully. (Message said so)
Not sure where to go from here ...Any thoughts help would be useful
What is a Mirror - I do not understant the term.

[klricks]

When your SD card is imaged properly you should find a small boot partition with 12 files in it. The rest of the image is not visible on a Windows computer without adding special programs. If you can't find the boot partition then your card is not imaged properly.

Which program are you using to do your disk image? Win32diskimager is the recommended image writer. Note that when you write the image to the SD card, all previous contents are lost. The imager program formats as it writes so there is generally no need to format the SD card elsewhere.
Make sure you have downloaded the latest image file.

I would not even bother with the 2G card. 4G is minimum.

See this about mirrors:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_%28computing%29
Also I have some basic tutorials on my site... imaging etc.:
http://64.13.91.137:86/Comp/RPi/Rpi.html

[johnleach2000]

Not sure of all the new lingo -
Thanks for the info on the "Mirror", so all the "mirror" programmes are just programmes that can be downloaded as operating systems/programmes?
Whats the difference between direct download and Torrent download?
I did use 2012-08-08-wheezy-armel.zip.torrent and 2012-08-08-wheezy-armel.zip on different occassions but seemingly without success in writing to the cards. It was confusing as the cards did indicate the write had been successful. I was trying the two card to try to see if they were different, but neither indicated anything on them using XP. -
Regards

[klricks]

In general when someone has files that they want to make available for download they use a computer configured as a server (download site). The files can be any type from pictures, PDF files, software installation or updates or OS images etc.
A very popular site can get overloaded by too many people trying to download at the same time.
So mirror sites are used. A mirror site is nothing more than a duplicate of the original site where identical programs can be accessed or downloaded. Also for world wide distributions, using a mirror on your continent may be faster than using a site which is thousands of miles away on another continent.

A torrent is a different type of download system and requires a special program on your computer. Do not use torrents unless you have downloaded and installed torrent software. Note that some ISP's will limit access to torrent sites as they are often used to illegally download 'bootleg' software, music or movies.

I would use the 2013-02-09 Rasbian Wheezy but the other one should have worked.

Are you using the win32diskimager software?