Update noobs.md

[ericthered]

SD card size greater than 32gb causes problems

[bennuttall]

@lurch is this true?

[lurch]

As I understand it they come pre-formatted as exFat (because the Microsoft tools don't "allow" FAT32 volumes larger than 32GB, even though it's technically possible), but it should be (theoretically?) possible to format them as FAT32, and then NOOBS should work just fine?
I'll order a 64GB SD card off Amazon to try it out... :)

[ericthered]

On 9/07/2014 9:20 a.m., Andrew Scheller wrote:

As I understand it they come pre-formatted as exFat (because the
Microsoft tools don't "allow" FAT32 volumes larger than 32GB, even
though it's technically possible), but it should be (theoretically?)
possible to format them as FAT32, and then NOOBS should work just fine?
I'll order a 64GB SD card off Amazon to try it out... :)

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
#88 (comment).

If you format it as per the NOOBS instructions it gets formatted as
exFat. There may be a way of formatting it fat32, but I can't see a way
of doing that with the SdFormatter.
If there is a way, then it would be good to put it in the instructions.

cheers,

Eric Hueting

p: (09) 5345432
m: 021 1414253

[email protected] mailto:[email protected]

[ericthered]

On 9/07/2014 9:19 a.m., Ben Nuttall wrote:

@lurch https://github.com/lurch is this true?

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
#88 (comment).

I formatted a 64gb SD card as per the NOOBS instructions and it was
formatted as exFat. Then I sat and wondered why it wasn't booting. Had
to do a bit of googling to find the answer. There may be a way of
formatting it fat32, but I can't see a way of doing that with the

SdFormatter.

Eric Hueting

p: (09) 5345432
m: 021 1414253

[email protected] mailto:[email protected]

[lurch]

While waiting for my 64GB card to arrive, I thought I'd do a quick bit of googling...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1773735
and
http://forums.androidcentral.com/samsung-galaxy-s3/190154-format-64gb-sdxc-fat32.html
suggest a few ways of formatting a 64GB SDXC card to FAT32.
(or of course you could use GParted on a Linux LiveCD)

[ericthered]

I'm sure its possible. I just went and installed the raspbian image which
was easy as pie, as that was what I wanted anyway. It's just that Noobs is
supposed to be dead easy, and this issue makes it harder, especially if
it's not documented.
On 9/07/2014 9:33 PM, "Andrew Scheller" [email protected] wrote:

While waiting for my 64GB card to arrive, I thought I'd do a quick bit of
googling...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1773735
and

http://forums.androidcentral.com/samsung-galaxy-s3/190154-format-64gb-sdxc-fat32.html
suggest a few ways of formatting a 64GB SDXC card to FAT32.
(or of course you could use GParted on a Linux LiveCD)

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
#88 (comment)
.

[lurch]

Rest assured that once my 64GB SD card arrives, I'll test out which option(s) works reliably, and then update the documentation as appropriate.

[popcornmix]

Be aware there are two types of SDXC cards.

The current generation cards are essentially SDHC with a larger capacity and SD3.0 compatible.
FAT32 will limit you to 32GB for a single partition, but once partitioned with linux fs the whole capacity should be usable.

"real" SDXC cards which are SD4.0 will not work at all since they are electrically different. There is no way of using these on Pi hardware.

Unfortunately whether a card is SD3.0 or SD4.0 is is often not made clear.

[lurch]

Be aware there are two types of SDXC cards.
The current generation cards are essentially SDHC with a larger capacity and SD3.0 compatible.
"real" SDXC cards which are SD4.0 will not work at all since they are electrically different. There is no way of using these on Pi hardware.
Unfortunately whether a card is SD3.0 or SD4.0 is is often not made clear.

Ah! Did not know that, thankyou.

FAT32 will limit you to 32GB for a single partition, but once partitioned with linux fs the whole capacity should be usable.

The way I understood it was that it was only the Microsoft formatting tools that limited you to creating 32GB partitions, but in principle there's no reason why (using 3rd party software) FAT32 partitions can't be created up to 2TB?
http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?fat32format.htm

But this becomes irrelevant once NOOBS has actually booted, since it automatically resizes the first partition as small as possible (approximately 1.5GB with the current version of NOOBS).
Which I suppose means you don't need to install 3rd-party software to setup an SDXC (SD3.0) card for use with NOOBS, as long as you're comfortable with creating a custom-sized partition.

[ghollingworth]

The current generation cards are essentially SDHC with a larger capacity and SD3.0 compatible.
FAT32 will limit you to 32GB for a single partition, but once partitioned with linux fs the whole capacity > should be usable.

FAT32 should be fine up to 2TB

"real" SDXC cards which are SD4.0 will not work at all since they are electrically different. There is no > way of using these on Pi hardware.

The SD version 4.0 specification specifies a number of different modes of communication, UHS-I and UHS-II (which we cannot do) are extensions to the standard SD (25MHz) and highspeed (50MHz) modes are the normal ones that work fine with 2835

No new SD card should be backwards incompatible otherwise they will not call it SD. If it doesn't work then it'd be because of bugs in either the SD card or our code not because they just don't work...

Gordon

[bennuttall]

@lurch what's the status of this?

[lurch]

It's still on my TODO list...

[waveform80]

In addition to Fat32Format and Easus Partition Master (suggested in the comments above) there also appears to be MiniTool Partition Wizard which this article suggests also works.

And of course, there's always the sensible solution (install Linux on your PC and format it with that ;)

[ghollingworth]

Also, try setting the volume label... We found a situation in the past where parted didn't like a filesystem formatted by a mac with no label

[lurch]

Apologies for the delay, I've finally got round to documenting how to format an SDXC card for use with NOOBS, with 320d77b