SD-InstallTool_Win_MiSTer
SD Card preparation tool for MiSTer FPGA project: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki
Latest release link: 2.0.2.0
Supported OS:
- Windows 10 64-bit
- Windows 8.x 64-bit
- Windows 7 64-bit
Not tested:
- Any 32-bit OS Pre-requisites:
- .Net framework v2.0 or newer installed
Goal
To have tool capable seamlessly create SD Card for MiSTer FPGA project. In fact, it can be used to produce SD Cards for any Intel-Altera SoC devices and boards.
How it's different from others
If standard way of distributing disk images is used (Win32DiskImager for example), you're restricted in disk size defined during image creation. If images was created using 2GB SD card - you'll get 2GB worth of data on your SD even if it's 16, 32, 64GB in real size.
Yes, then you can try to expand last partition in Linux, but in our opinion it's highly unfriendly to the end user.
So, we made it real simple and effective: service and Linux OS partitions have reasonable limits to fit everything needed to boot the device and have no issues with space for few years. But all user data (emulation cores, settings, disk images, etc.) are located in flexible size Data partition. And SD Install tool calculates in on-the-fly based in real SD Card size. So, you'll get maximum size for your data and no headache. Everything is done automatically.
Screenshots:
Main window:
Log window:
Usage:
Full Install:
Does all the magic automatically. Just insert SD Card (>2GB), click "Full Install" and get things done.
What it does (if you're really interested in):
- Wipe all content on selected SD card
- Create brand bew MBR-base disk
- Re-partition it (3 partitions created: Preloader (Uboot), Linux (Ext4), Data(ExFAT))
- Transfer preloader and linux disk images to correspondent partitions
- Format Data partition with ExFAT system
- [Optional] Copy MiSTer binary and menu files to data partition (if correspondent package available)
Linux Update:
Available only if SD Card was previously prepared by MiSTer Windows or Linux tools and properly partitioned.
Data partition is not changed. All MiSTer data/cores/configurations stay untouched and safe.
Check for compatibility is done automatically. Button is disable if any pre-condition failed. You can read more details in Log Windows.
Only one action is performed:
- Transfer preloader and linux disk images to correspondent partitions
Wipe:
Does SD Card wipe operation (MBR and partitioning information cleared up, first 4MB of card wiped with zeroes). So card is now like you just purchased it and contains no information.
Can be useful if you have issues with any SD card that cannot be formatted properly by any device (PC, Mac, DSLR, etc.)
Notes:
Codebase can be potentially used as a flexible SD card installer/formatter for any other embedded/FPGA/SoC platforms.