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I installed NOOBS in my sd card and used Raspibian for a while. Recently I decided to change, so I opened my sd card and copied all the files to another computer (made a "backup"). I formatted my sd card and copied all the files back to the sd. However, on the boot, I receive the message "waiting for sd card (setting partition)" and no progress is made (I waited a few hours).

I beleive the sd does not have the correct partitions. But I found nothing on the subject that doesn't involve formatting and starting from 0.

Is there a way I can partition the sd and use it or restore the files from my old raspibian and update in a new one?

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  • The “another computer” - was it a Windows machine? Windows can't read past the first partition of an SD card, so your backup unfortunately didn't save the Raspbian information you need. Now that you've formatted the card, the information is gone and can't be restored.
    – scruss
    Nov 14, 2017 at 12:58

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You can't make a backup like that. If you want to make a backup of your RPi, you need to create an image of it. You can try to create this image with the content you copied and then install it again on your pi.

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  • I saw this after I messed up :(. But now I need my things before making the correct backup. I tried to install again and that error appeared. Also, if I try to burn the image I copied on the sd, the card does not allocate any partition and become a 0 Kb card. Meaning I have to reformat it
    – andseg
    Sep 1, 2017 at 19:45
  • Hm... But have you tried creating an image from the content you saved, and then installing that image (like the instructions on RPi's website recommend)?
    – amorimph
    Sep 1, 2017 at 19:48
  • Not with Etcher. I will try that now
    – andseg
    Sep 1, 2017 at 19:50
  • Try using a SD formatter first, and then the whole thing
    – amorimph
    Sep 1, 2017 at 19:50
  • I got "Looks like this is not a bootable image". I can continue but the sd card will have no partition just like before. "This image does not appear to contain a partition table".
    – andseg
    Sep 1, 2017 at 20:00

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