Appendix A. Loading the Raspbian Operating System
onto an SD Card
In order to boot your Raspberry Pi, you need a properly created SD card with the Raspbian operating
system loaded onto it. You cannot simply copy the file over to the card. You must use image burner
software or another appropriate utility. This appendix will help you move your downloaded copy of
the Raspbian operating system’s raw image from your computer to an SD ard.
Which section of this appendix you should use depends on the type of computer where the
downloaded Raspbian operating system’s raw image file now resides. If you downloaded the
operating system file to a Windows system, then go to the section “Windows: Loading Raspbian onto
an SD Card” of this appendix. If you downloaded to a Linux system, then go to the “Linux” section. If
you downloaded to an Apple system, then go to the “Mac” section.
Windows: Loading Raspbian onto an SD Card
If you downloaded Raspbian to a Windows machine, follow these steps to load Raspbian onto an SD
card:
- If you do not already have one, download and install a disk image writer utility onto your
Windows machine. The Win32DiskImager utility from https://launchpad.net/win32-image-
writer is recommended (see Figure A.1).
FIGURE A.1 Win32DiskImager utility website.