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I have a new Raspberry Pi v2 unit and I'm trying to use an SD card image from one of my other Raspberry Pi B+ units. When I insert the Pi B+ card into the Pi v2 I get a multicolored image on my monitor, but then nothing.

I have read several posts about converting from B+ to v2, but none seem to address in any detail what I should do when the B+ SD card does not boot up. One post (indented below) indicated that I should look at the kernel. Sorry but I'm too much of a beginner to full understand what that meant and what I should be doing :-(

Can you use a micro SD card from raspberry pi B+ on the raspberry pi 2 model B?

However, be sure to make it clear that you have checked for the correct kernel and include the kernel= line from /boot/config.txt, if any.

Repeating myself, when I put in the old Pi B+ SD card into the Pi v2 I get the multicolored screen and then nothing, the red LED in on solid and the other one is off.

edit: 19 July Additional info: The SD card I'm working with was built up from a NOOBS when I bought my first two Raspberry Pi B+ units in July 2014. When I look at that SD card on my Windows PC I do not see a config.txt, nor a kernel.img file. Should I create a config.txt file? Where can I get a copy of the kernel17.img specified in the above reference?

If I insert a NOOBS SD it boots up ok, but I would really like to not have to totally reconfigure this new unit.

Thanks for any help....RDK

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user2898304
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2 Answers2

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I thought this wasn't possible because the CPU is completely different; notice armv6l vs armv7l in the output below.

However, I found this other post that states otherwise; haven't tried myself, but worth a shot!

RPi B+:

pi@tribecapi ~ $ uname -a
Linux tribecapi 3.18.11+ #781 PREEMPT Tue Apr 21 18:02:18 BST 2015 armv6l GNU/Linux

RPi 2:

pi@mediapi ~ $ uname -a
Linux mediapi 3.18.11-v7+ #781 SMP PREEMPT Tue Apr 21 18:07:59 BST 2015 armv7l GNU/Linux
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berto
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    That other post is correct ;) All of the A/B/+ userland stuff will work on Pi 2 since ARMv7 is backward compatible with ARMv6, and I think the firmware is the same as well, but there are differences in the kernel (which is compiled for ARMv7); if you don't indicate a kernel in config.txt and there's a kernel7.img, the bootloader should deal with it. – goldilocks Jul 17 '15 at 14:24
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You should run sudo sh -c "apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade" on your B+. That worked for me. Then put the SD card into your Pi 2.

Merlin04
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  • I'm sorry, but this is wrong. update will upgrade the package listing, and upgrade will update the packages. You aren't updating distribution packages with this set of commands. – Jacobm001 Jul 20 '15 at 14:57