nothing booting up when I power up

franke808

Pi Model: B
RetroPie Version Used: 4.1
nothing booting up when I power up. I just got my raspberry pi 3 , downloaded the image, unzipped on micro sd then put in raspberry pi and powered it on then nothing. please help new to this

synack

@franke808 You can't just unzip the image to the micro sd card. You need to write the image to it using Win32DiskImager or similar, depending on your OS. Read through this guide, it will walk you through the steps: https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/First-Installation

franke808

I have windows os. I open win32 disk imager hit the file button, but the img file wont show up anywhere. but if I click on my files, it will show up on my desktop. so I click on the img file that I downloaded and asks me how to open it up, I command win32 disk imager. win32 disk imager opens up with the img file in place already, I then click write, it writes it, take the sd card out pop it in my raspberry pie power it up, and nothing boots up. my hdmi is plugged in, but nothing comes up on my screen

Snoop67

@franke808

Is the red LED on the Pi constantly on or is it flashing or off?
Has the power supply at least 2.5A?

markyh444

Is it the right image for your model of Pi as you've said you've got a Pi3, but put model B as well. With a Pi3 you'll need a good quality charger too

brucefox

Hi Franke808, Here are three main possibilities:

The OS (written image) is corrupt/not present,
The SD card is faulty,
The Pi is faulty.

When you wrote the image to the SD card, in Windows did it show that the card had free (and used) space and that you could open that 'drive' and see files on the SD card? If not, then you possibly didn't extract the image file 'prior' to writing it using Win32 Disk Imager.

I had yesterday an situation that the Pi wouldn't boot with a reimaged (old) SD card. My problem was if I pressed the SD card in a certain place the Pi would boot. Long story short, the SD cards connection pads were worn and didn't make appropriate contact.
I was able to use a spare SD card and successfully use that. Tip: Use a micro SD card in an SD card adapter so if the contacts wear, you just swap out the adapter without having to rebuild your OS.

To test the Pi, try a different serviceable SD card.