Can I use a USB drive instead of a micro sd card?

Question

I have a USB but not a micro SD card. I installed the operating system onto it.

Can I use that as the storage and OS layer for my Raspberry Pi 4?

this really depends on which Pi you have ... 0, 0W, A, B, A+, B+ and 2B always need an sd card with at least bootcode.bin on it, the rest of the boot CAN be from USB device .... Pi 3 (not +) needs to boot from SD at least once, then you need to set a "flag", and you can boot from USB from then on ...3B+ or 3A+ can boot from USB as factory default (it has the aforementioned flag pre-set) ... pi4 needs to boot from SD at least once so you can update the EEPROM bootloader to the latest "stable" version — Jaromanda X, Jun 22, 2020 at 23:59
google.com/search?q=pi+gui+on+mac - that's a good place to start — Jaromanda X, Jun 23, 2020 at 0:16

MatsK · Accepted Answer · 2021-11-01 08:23:43Z

3

Since you have a Raspberry Pi 4 it is possible to get it to boot from USB.

The process to switch from SD card boot to USB boot is demanding that you FIRST boot from a SD card.

So YES you need a SD card.

The process is roughly:

Now you can boot your Raspberry Pi 4 from the USB.

answered Jun 25, 2020 at 19:48

MatsK

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It would be great if you could go into a bit more detail on the steps as to whats needs to be done. currently it seems like this is what you mean for steps 2 and 3? If not could you provide some clarification please?
– Erik K
Oct 31, 2021 at 8:09
I have added a link to a more recent URL than the one you have found.
– MatsK
Nov 1, 2021 at 8:24
Thanks. That only works for people with a GUI though. I have managed to do it through a usb. I managed to get it working following this guy.
– Erik K
Nov 2, 2021 at 9:05

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