First time poster in need of help: Pi3 not booting

grant2258

yes windows by default hides filetypes do you have winzip installed ?

jbryan1984

No my trial ran out on that. I am using the same image file from last month. Could that be the problem? Should I just delete it and do the entire process over again?

grant2258

just get 7zip http://www.7-zip.org/ its a free winzip basically just choose the what version 23 or 64 bit. 4.3 is the latest image anyway just install 7zip select the file right click and extract it with 7zip

jbryan1984

OK I actually do have 7zip installed. I will re-download the original file completely and get back to you.

jbryan1984

Unfortunately, same exact results. Blue screen, no signal. I have even opened the SD card to make sure something is on it. There is one folder that says "overlays" and 24 other stand alone files. Some say DAT, DTB, ELF and a few others. Is that what is supposed to be on the SD card? I thought the last time I did it, there was an OS folder too? One thing I should bring up that is odd is that the SD card will only appear on my computer if I use the adapter, it doesn't show up with the usb reader.

mitu

@jbryan1984 said in First time poster in need of help: Pi3 not booting:

Some say DAT, DTB, ELF and a few others. Is that what is supposed to be on the SD card?

The 1st partition on the card should have those files, yes.

jbryan1984

Is there anything else that should be on there?

grant2258

i had this problem with a toshiba laptop on windows ten. The only way i could get the sdcard to write properly was to format it with https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/index.html.

download the above and format the sd card reboot the pc
now try writing the image again.

I had problems on my toshiba laptop, Problem is you card is partitioned now sdcard format will fix that and you can write it again like fresh

jbryan1984

I actually have that same software installed and have formatted it each time before writing the image. I have checked each time to make sure nothing is on the card. Am I writing the file with the correct hash? MD5?

mitu

@jbryan1984 There's a MD5 checksum on the download page, so you check that the image is downloaded correctly. So far, from what you've said, there doesn't seem to be a problem with the image, but with the PI itself or the SD card. Can you try downloading another image - Rasbian Lite for instance - write it and see it boots ?

grant2258

i dont use hash leave it at none

jbryan1984

@mitu and @grant2258 I will try both suggestions.

grant2258

here is the thing your missing though the reboot format reboot burn. My toshiba laptop needed this its the only computer ive had that particular problem with

jbryan1984

@grant2258 what is the steps to do that? and @mitu where do you download Rasbian lite? I found something called Rasbian Lite Stretch.

grant2258

i think ive found your problem https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/installation/sdxc_formatting.md you need to get it formatted fat32 then burn the image this page explains it. max i have went is 16 gigs

jbryan1984

@mitu Rasbian Lite didn't work either. @grant2258 I will try that next. After reading it, it sure does make sense. Wish me luck.

grant2258

it will work just do the sd format then the guiformat.exe youll be good. I really do need to get a bigger sd no excuse now they are cheap enough

jbryan1984

lol it still didn't work! I formatted it with SD card formatter, then did the fat 32 format in guiformat, then burned the image using windisk32. Still has the same results. How can I tell if the pi or sd card is faulty? Like I said the pi lights up red and the sd card shows it has files on it.

mitu

@jbryan1984 Besides trying either another PI or another card, take a look at https://elinux.org/R-Pi_Troubleshooting#Red_power_LED_is_blinking. It explains the LED color relation to various boot problems, including if your SD card is read or not by the PI.
I assume you inserted the SD card correctly, so it's not one of those 'is the monitor pluged in ?' moments.

jbryan1984

ok next I am going to try the fat32 format but instead of burning the retropie image, I will try the Rasbian lite image you suggested. If that don't work then I will try your next suggestion. Yes, the sd card is inserted face down. I even went threw some youtube videos to ensure they inserted it the same way. it doesn't go in the other way anyway. I am using my TV as the monitor. I have switched HDMI ports but the others plugged into my xbox, cable and roku all work fine.