Jetson Orin Nano Developer Kit Getting Started Guide

Format your microSD card using SD Memory Card Formatter from the SD Association.

1. Download, install, and launch SD Memory Card Formatter for Windows.
2. Select card drive
3. Select “Quick format”
4. Leave “Volume label” blank
5. Click “Format” to start formatting, and “Yes” on the warning dialog

Use Etcher to write the SD card image to your microSD card

1. Download, install, and launch Etcher.
   
2. Click “Select image” and choose the zipped image file downloaded earlier.
3. Insert your microSD card if not already inserted.
   Click Cancel (per this explanation) if Windows prompts you with a dialog like this:
   
4. Click “Select drive” and choose the correct device.
   
5. Click “Flash!” It will take Etcher about 15 minutes to write and validate the image if your microSD card is connected via USB3.
6. After Etcher finishes, Windows may let you know it doesn’t know how to read the SD Card. Just click Cancel and remove the microSD card.
   

After your microSD card is ready, proceed to set up your developer kit.

You can either write the SD card image using a graphical program like Etcher, or via command line.

Etcher Instructions

1. Do not insert your microSD card yet.
2. Download, install, and launch Etcher.
   
3. Click “Select image” and choose the zipped image file downloaded earlier.
4. Insert your microSD card. Click Ignore if your Mac shows this window:
   
5. If you have no other external drives attached, Etcher will automatically select the microSD card as target device. Otherwise, click “Select drive” and choose the correct device.
6. Click “Flash!” Your Mac may prompt for your username and password before it allows Etcher to proceed
   
   It will take Etcher about 10 minutes to write and validate the image if your microSD card is connected via USB3.
7. After Etcher finishes, your Mac may let you know it doesn’t know how to read the SD Card. Just click Eject and remove the microSD card.
   

Command Line Instructions

1. Do not insert your microSD card yet. Waiting will help you discover correct disk device name in steps below.
2. Open the Terminal app:
   
3. Use this command to list any external disk devices already attached to your Mac:
   diskutil list external | fgrep '/dev/disk'
   For example, if you already have a USB drive attached to your Mac, the result will look similar to this:
   
4. Insert your microSD card. Click Ignore if your Mac shows this window:
   
5. Use the same command as before to list external disk devices. The newly listed disk device is the microSD card (/dev/disk2 in this example):
   
6. Use this command to remove any existing partitions from the microSD card, ensuring MacOS will let you write to it. BE VERY CAREFUL to specify the correct disk device.
   sudo diskutil partitionDisk /dev/disk<n> 1 GPT "Free Space" "%noformat%" 100%
   For example:
   
7. Use this command to write the zipped SD card image to the microSD card. Note the use of /dev/rdisk instead of /dev/disk:
   /usr/bin/unzip -p ~/Downloads/jetson_nano_devkit_sd_card.zip | sudo /bin/dd of=/dev/rdisk<n> bs=1m
   For example:
   
8. There will be no indication of progress (unless you signal with CTRL-t). When the dd command finishes, your Mac will let you know it cannot read the microSD card. Just click Eject:
   

After your microSD card is ready, proceed to set up your developer kit.

You can either write the SD card image using a graphical program like Etcher, or via command line.

Etcher Instructions

1. Download, install, and launch Etcher.
   
2. Click “Select image” and choose the zipped image file downloaded earlier.
3. Insert your microSD card. If you have no other external drives attached, Etcher will automatically select the microSD card as target device. Otherwise, click “Change” and choose the correct device.
   
4. Click “Flash!” Your OS may prompt for your username and password before it allows Etcher to proceed.
   
   It will take Etcher 10-15 minutes to write and validate the image if your microSD card is connected via USB3.
5. After Etcher finishes, eject the SD Card using Files application:
   
6. Physically remove microSD card from the computer.

Command Line Instructions

1. Open the Terminal application by pressing Ctrl + Alt + t.
2. Insert your microSD card, then use a command like this to show which disk device was assigned to it:
   
   dmesg | tail | awk '$3 == "sd" {print}'
   In this example, we can see the 16GB microSD card was assigned /dev/sda:
   
3. Use this command to write the zipped SD card image to the microSD card:
   
   /usr/bin/unzip -p ~/Downloads/jetson_nano_devkit_sd_card.zip | sudo /bin/dd of=/dev/sd<x> bs=1M status=progress
   For example:
   
   When the dd command finishes, eject the disk device from the command line:
   
   sudo eject /dev/sd<x>
4. Physically remove microSD card from the computer.

After your microSD card is ready, proceed to Setup your developer kit.