A card that is bootable in a Raspberry Pi must contain a FAT32 partition with the boot files on or it won't boot.Maybe it's dependent on several factors, but mine does not seem to contain a FAT32 partition.
All I get on Windows is a message:
"You need to format the disk in drive F: before you can use it."
followed by:
"The volume does not contain a recognized file system." (with additional information)
I'm currently using a 16GB card; a larger card might be formatted differently.
Also, possibly, I should have said "the card is formatted as ext4, which is used by Android, Linux and several other related systems"; but, I was trying to not be pedantic, and I was simply pointing out that the file system was usable by the Raspberry Pi but not readable in Windows.
The message from Windows is referring to the ext4 partition. If that is drive F:, then the FAT partition is probably drive E:
Statistics: Posted by rpdom — Thu Jan 22, 2026 7:40 pm