install raspbian to same installation media?

Save yourself some hassle if you just want Raspbian. Download it directly and install to SD card.

The card may be foobar. Noobs tends to permanently write-protect the start-up partition.

Tried Raspbian, kept getting the message unable to expand filesystem Tried burning my micro sd card with etcher Same thing

Get a new card and copy Raspbian on it.

Noobs may have write-protected the partition that needs to be changed.

dd ought to smack the partitions as well as te data.

No.

There is a bit in the SD card which can be turned on to write-protect an area, but it cannot ever be turned off.

There are tools for handling the low-level properties on SD cards. I'm using SD Formatter on OS X.

Should I be able to setup the sd card on linux? I've been using gparted on linux to setup the sd card

No need - just unzip the file and dd the image onto the card, or use etcher which will unzip and write the image.

No.

It appears after a little research taht some SDC rcrds go readonly and need binning.

It alos appears that this is the best chance to save them

Sorry, that's rubbish, there is no firmware on an SD card to do this.

That is factually correct (unlike the spelling).

As you say, they need binning, don't try to save them.

When they go read only, they are giving you a last chance to copy the data off before they stop working completely.

From experience you might get away with making read it r/w again a couple of times, but it happen again much quicker, and soon the data will either be completely scrambled or not accessible at all.

---druck

-=> Rob Morley wrote to Dan Clough Putting Raspian on an SD card in Linux is very simple. Like this: > > Either as root, or using sudo: > > dd bs=4M if=raspian_file.img of=/dev/mmcblk0 > > That's all there is to it. Will take a few minutes to finish. > > Obviously, use the correct filename where I wrote > 'raspian_file.img' there above, and the 'mmcblk0' is *usually* the > correct name of the SD card. > > After that just put the SD in the Pi, and boot it up. Done.

RM> Don't forget to expand the second partition to use all of the RM> card (or create a separate partition to use the space) if RM> raspbian doesn't do it automatically (I've had fresh RM> installations where I had to use the option in raspi-config, and RM> others where it happened automatically - I'm not sure what the RM> difference was that caused this behaviour).

I believe that on the several most recent versions of Raspian, this has been automated. Happens automatically right at the beginning of the process every time for me.

... Press any key to continue or any other key to quit === MultiMail/Linux v0.52

There is. Look up the 'permanent write protect' bit in CSD bit 13.

SD cards are more than just dumb block devices, even if that's the way the vast majority of people use them. That's the raison d'etre of the 'Secure' part of 'Secure Digital'.

If it's a high value card (say 512GB) it could be worth a try saving them - getting the data off then doing a complete format with the SD Association tool. But I wouldn't use it for anything critical after that point.

If it's a small card I'd just buy a new one.

If it's gone Permanent Write Protect then I don't think the formatter will help.

Theo

As the research shows there is no such thing. Not as 'permanent'. Not by

Don't forget to expand the second partition to use all of the card (or create a separate partition to use the space) if raspbian doesn't do it automatically (I've had fresh installations where I had to use the option in raspi-config, and others where it happened automatically - I'm not sure what the difference was that caused this behaviour).