Raspberry pi won't boot. Plz help

Hurkgt18

I am attempting to install retropie on my raspberry pi zero. I have formatted my Sandisc class 10 16 gb mini SD card to Fat32. I downloaded the correct retropie image, extracted it and wrote it to the SD card. I inserted the SD card into the pi, correctly attached the cords and when I plugged in the power source which is more than adequate (5v 2.4 A) I get nothing. Not signal to my tv, no flicker of an LED on the Pi but the LED on my Amazon powerhub lights up. What am I missing here? The person I bought the pie from mailed it to me, USPS, in a regular letter envelope. Could it be that the Pi itself is broken?

Drakaen391

@hurkgt18 said in Raspberry pi won't boot. Plz help:

is the pi connected to the powerhub?

no lights at all means it isnt getting power.

Also, double check that the plug is going into the power and not the OTG plug (the are the exact same type of micro USB)

Hurkgt18

@drakaen391 yes the pi is connected to the power hub. The power source goes into the usb port that says PWR. And the LED light on the USB hub that is plugged into the usb slot of the pi is lit up so I know power is making it's way thru the Pi. I was also wondering, I use Windows 10 and when I formatted the SD card, my only option was FAT and exFAT. Technically my SD card doesn't say I'm formatted to FAT32

Hurkgt18

@drakaen391 it's formatted to FAT

Drakaen391

The USB hub isn’t providing enough amps to the pi...

Even without an as card the led on the pi would light...

The power hub doesn’t give a consistent speed... you may also have a bad cord...

The led on the hub only detects a plug but not if it’s getting full Voltage...

A dedicated plug is what you need

Hurkgt18

@drakaen391 ok. Can you recommend one? And when you say power hub you mean the cord I plug into the wall correct?

Drakaen391

the official Raspberry pi plug is the best bet. but Canakit are just as good...

I am guessing your a Prime Member, so this item would be what you need

CanaKit 5V 2.5A Raspberry Pi 3 B+ Power Supply / Adapter (UL Listed)
http://a.co/iI2U5iU

rbaker

@hurkgt18 said in Raspberry pi won't boot. Plz help:

I use Windows 10 and when I formatted the SD card, my only option was FAT and exFAT. Technically my SD card doesn't say I'm formatted to FAT32

Use https://etcher.io/ on the image directly.

adagio

i have the same problem...

HI, am new in this, but I follow all the instruction but is not working.
I want to install retropie but my rasberry but show a yellow lightning.

i got rasberry pi 3B+
i download retropie-4.3-rpi2_rpi3.img
using etcher burn the img file to my SD

Now what else?

mitu

@adagio said in Raspberry pi won't boot. Plz help:

Now what else?

You need to use the updated image, based on Raspbian Stretch - https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/16307/retropie-4-3-15-stretch-images-for-testing. It's pinned at the top of the Help and Support section, you can't miss it.

Hurkgt18

@mitu hey my email is hurkgt18@yahoo.com. would you be able to shoot me an email so we could communicate that way

mitu

@hurkgt18 No, but you can use the forum - after all, that's what it's for.

herb_fargus

@hurkgt18 wouldn't that be useful if everyone just personally emailed each other for support? The forum would be so clean! We wouldnt have to worry about finding the answers to the same questions other people might have, gone would be the repeated requests for answers that are already in the documentation, you might be on to something!

Hurkgt18

UPDATE: I plugged my pi into my computer and my pc recognized it as a drive, so this means the Pi is not dead. I just received the Canakit Pi power supply, so my power supply is not the issue. I have to imagine it has to do with either the retropie image or the sd card itself. I swear I followed all instructions to the letter when writing the image to the pi but still the pi is not booting. I feel like i am taking crazy pills

Lurker

I've been where you are in projects and nothing makes sense. It should work but it doesn't and you feel like everything you might try will just make it worse and you might as well burn the house down now, but you can't remember where the matches are. So maybe you should just burrow under a pile of rubble and wait to die... "oh the sd card is upside down...heh funny that"

My wife calls it bubbling.

You are not far into it so best advice...
Take a few deep breadths to clear your mind.
Take it from step 1 and even though you downloaded the image and everything, move the old image somewhere else.
Download a new image .
Write it to your micro sd card.
Plug in a monitor and keyboard.
Plug in the micro sd card (make sure it is in the right direction, seriously the above rant caught me once)
Check everything is seated.
Plug in power.

If it works you can take it from there. If not the pie you have may be damaged as you mentioned it arrived rather rough.
...that or resume looking for matches until someone else can talk you down.

To help me, I made my wife a sign to hold up that says

"LISTEN to your Wife!
She is right more often than you."

Clyde

@hurkgt18 The SD card should be easier to replace than the Pi, can you get your hands on another card? A small one of 8 GB should suffice for testing.

Did you check that your download of the image has the same md5sum checksum that's listed under the download button at https://retropie.org.uk/download/? If you don't know how to do that, a quick web search should give you loads of how-tos for your operating system. You should check this first before wildly swapping any hardware. And no, multiple downloads don't guarantee that one of them is faultless.

edit: Mind that you'll have to match the .gz archive with the checksum, not the .img contained in it.

@lurker said in Raspberry pi won't boot. Plz help:

To help me, I made my wife a sign to hold up that says

"LISTEN to your Wife!
She is right more often than you."

You made my day. :D

Hurkgt18

So I took all my stuff to a local store that deals with tech and raspberry pi. Didn't know this store existed lol. We tested my SD card on their display Pi and it started to boot. It was a faulty Pi after all. New one arrives tomorrow. Thanks for the help everyone. Glad I wasn't going nuts.

herb_fargus

@hurkgt18 faulty hardware is unusual but I guess if they are put through the post in naught but a paper envelope that might up the odds. Glad you got it sorted.

rbaker

@hurkgt18 said in Raspberry pi won't boot. Plz help:

We tested my SD card on their display Pi

But did you test your Pi "in" their setup?

Hurkgt18

@rbaker Yes. They used my Pi with their set up and their set up no longer worked.