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I feel stupid asking the question: I've been looking for an answer for half an hour, but it seems that anybody else have figured it out.

I've got my first Raspberry Pi 3 model B. I followed the instructions to prepare the SD card, plugged the SD card into Raspberry Pi, connected an USB keyboard, a network cable and a PC HDMI monitor, and plugged the power, expecting something to happen.

But all that happened is that the power LED turned orange; it's not blinking, it just stays orange. Then nothing. The monitor remains off. The network indicators don't light up (neither on Raspberry Pi, nor on the switch). The keyboard numeric lock stays black as well.

I imagine there is something I should do to actually turn Raspberry Pi on. But what? I can see no buttons on the board.

What should I do now?

Arseni Mourzenko
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  • The Pi boots when power is applied. There is no on/off switch. Have a look through https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=58151 – joan May 27 '17 at 11:33
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    If the green LED never comes on (i.e., there is only the red one; they are right next to each other), the SD card is not formatted correctly. – goldilocks May 27 '17 at 11:55

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After the unzip -p 2017-04-10-raspbian-jessie.zip | sudo dd of=/dev/sdX bs=4096 command there should be two partitions on the the new sd card, the first is start up and has to be a fat partition and the second has the root filesystem. To start over again (as Goldilocks comment) format the sd card from beginning to end in fat32 format.

sudo fdisk /dev/sdX  # sdX would be your sda, sdb, ...

Command (m for help): o
Command (m for help): n
Select (default p): [Enter]
Partition number (1-4, default 1): [Enter]
First sector (2048-31250431, default 2048): [Enter]
Last sector, (2048-31250431, default 31250431): [Enter]
Command (m for help): t
Hex code (type L to list all codes): c
Command (m for help): w

sudo mkfs.vfat -n boot /dev/sda1

Then unzip the raspbian image again. (Note: Linux instructions)

bstipe
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  • Thank you for the hint. It was indeed something to do with the format of the SD card. I went buying another card, the problem is the same, including when reformatted like you explain in your answer; seems like dd-ying the official image simply doesn't work. Tried Etcher, and Raspberry Pi's green LED is now blinking twice, then the device restarts. Will try to prepare the SD card from Windows, expecting that at least that will work. I never expected Raspberry Pi would be so difficult to use... – Arseni Mourzenko May 27 '17 at 16:12
  • It takes a little effort, it easier the more you use it. You may wish to view https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/66556/how-can-i-backup-my-whole-sd-to-an-img-file-usable-with-etcher-to-restore-later/66991#66991 and https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/65838/raspbian-on-usb-stick/65871#65871. – bstipe May 27 '17 at 16:45
  • Thanks for the links, bstipe. Meanwhile, it doesn't work when preparing the micro SD card from Windows either. There are plenty of different instructions for Windows, all using different tools, even on the official site. Ended up downloading Etcher, SDFormatter, Win32DiskImager, NOOBS, Raspbian... Why not having just one way to do the thing, one way which actually works? I'm very disappointed. – Arseni Mourzenko May 27 '17 at 20:21
  • I am glad that you got it working. There are a lot of different way of getting the OS downloaded and installed. I have a old Windows system, don't want to add extras to it, I do most everything on the Pi itself. Beginning I bought the NOOBS card. – bstipe May 27 '17 at 21:21