- Make sure your SD card is not inserted
- Open a terminal window and type
watch lsblk
- Insert the SD card and watch for a new device appearing in lsblk
- Observe the output for the new device. It should match something like this:
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT mmcblk0 179:0 0 29.7G 0 disk └─mmcblk0p1 179:1 0 29.5G 0 part /run/media/user/FFFF-FFFF
- Take note of the name of the device that now appears. In our example above, it was
mmcblk0
, but it could show up assda
orsdb
, if you use a USB adapter- If
RO
is set to 1, make sure the lock switch is not slid down
- If
- Hit CTRL + C to exit the menu
- Type
sudo umount /dev/<device name>*
(do not replace the*
) - Install the
fdisk
anddosfstools
packages using your package manager of choice - Type
sudo fdisk /dev/<device name>
- Enter
o
, this will create a new MBR partition scheme - Enter
n
, then press enter until you're returned to the prompt- The default values will work fine for all consoles
- Enter
t
, then enter0c
- Enter
a
and thenp
- observe the output, and make sure the device is now formatted correctly:Disk /dev/mmcblk0: 29.72 GiB, 31914983424 bytes, 62333952 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disklabel type: dos Disk identifier: 0x######## Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type /dev/<partition name> 8192 62333951 62325760 29.7G c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
- If there are no issues, enter
w
- this will save changes and exit the fdisk prompt - Type
sudo mkfs.vfat /dev/<partition name> -s 64
to reformat the new partition- If the SD card is over 32GB in size, change
64
to128
- If the SD card is over 32GB in size, change
- Type
sudo eject /dev/<device name>
, then remove and reinsert the SD card - If the SD card had any files and folders on it before the format, copy everything back from your computer, unless you were linked to this by another guide that needs the SD to be formatted and blank