This chapter shows how to create the SD card. As mentioned in page "Board bring-up overview for TEI0022" this part is for SD card setup which should be done in the following steps:

The section "Generate SD card partitions and filesystems" describes the process to create the needed partitions and filesystems on the SD card via the Linux tool fdisk. Section "Copy files to partitions" shows the moving from files on the partitions.

Generate SD card partitions and filesystems

The Intel Cyclone V needs a specific SD card structure which should be realized within the following steps in a linux system. Therefore, the structure shall be introduced in the next subsection. Then, in the second subsection the partitions shall be generated. After that, the filesystems shall be created. Then, in the last subsection, the modification shall be written on the SD card.

SD card structure

The SD card needs three partitions, one vfat, one linux and one 0xA2 partition. The following table shows the target SD card partition which shall be generated in the next section.

#PartitionPurposeSize
1W95 FAT32 (LBA)(U-Boot,)* Linux Kernel, Device Tree Blob> 20 MB
2Linux ext(2/3 or 4)Linux Root Filesystem> 150 MB to 2 GB
30xA2 Preloader(, U-Boot)*>= 2 MB

* In this guide, the U-Boot shall be located in vFAT partition 1.

Partition generation 

To generate the several partitions, the next steps are necessary:

Creating partition #1:

Creating partition #2:

Creating partition #3:

Writing SD card modifications:

The previos settings are not written to the SD card at this point. To write the changes to the card the next steps are necessary. Therefore, if the wrong identifier is selected, the following commands can destroy the host system! Be aware to use the correct identifier! Furthermore, deleting the existing partitions on the card destroys the saved information! If the information are needed save them before continuing!

Filesystem generation

The filesystems are created with the linux tool mkfs.

Copy files to partitions

After preparing the SD card for booting, this section describes the copy process for the relevant files with a Linux and a Windows operating system (OS):

vFAT Partition 1:

ext3 Partition 2:

0xA2 Partition 3:

After doing these steps, the SD card can be inserted into the board and the boot process can be started. If booting runs into linux, the procedure is done.