Re-loading Raspberry Pi OS on your microSD Card
The operating system on your microSD card can sometimes be corrupted if the Raspberry Pi is not powered down correctly.
See these instructions from the Raspberry Pi Foundation for the best method to re-load an OS onto your microSD card.
For all Pi except the 3 A+ and Zero family, we recommend using the "Raspberry Pi OS with desktop" images.
For the 3 A+ and Zero family, we recommend using the "Raspberry Pi OS Lite" images.
Note that since the introduction of Raspberry Pi OS "Bookworm", you have two options:
Use the new "Bookworm" release of the OS:
Use the older "Bullseye" or "Legacy" release of the OS from the Raspberry Pi OS (Legacy) downloads page. Note that Raspberry Pi 5 IS NOT supported!
Limited support, no new feature or compatibility updates
Please note you will need another computer with a microSD card reader to do this.
For reference, the best way to power down the Raspberry Pi when running Raspberry Pi OS is:
From Desktop:
- Onscreen, click the Raspberry logo from the menu bar, and select 'Shut down'
- Confirm 'Shut down' from the three choices
- Wait about 10 seconds or until the green activity LED on the Pi board stops flashing
- Unplug or switch off the power supply to the Pi board
From command-line:
- Type "sudo shutdown -h now"
- Wait about 10 seconds or until the green activity LED on the Pi board stops flashing
- Unplug or switch off the power supply to the Pi board