Start Here: to Update Your Micro SD Card for NVidia Jetson Orin Nano

Start Here: to Update Your Micro SD Card for NVidia Jetson Orin Nano


First off... Use Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL2) on your development machine.
Step-by-step so you see exactly how to run Linux Ubuntu 24.04 on a Windows 10/11 machine without wiping Windows.

This is built into Windows 10 & 11 Pro/Home. It runs real Ubuntu under Windows—no reboot, no dual boot.

Steps

1. Open PowerShell (Admin)

wsl --install



Unbox your NVidia Jetson Orin Nano.
Tip: Get the case for it at Amazon.

Yahboom​

Jetson Case for Jetson Nano Orin Nano Orin NX Super Heat Metal Mini Protect Case with Cooling Fan Antenna RGB Light(OLED Needs Program Drive)​

You need to format your Micro SD Card.
I'm running 512 Gig... so windows cannot format that size.
You need to download software to do this.

Windows’ built-in format command cannot make a FAT32 partition larger than 32 GB.
Your card is hundreds of gigabytes, so the command stops right there even though the card itself is fine.

Option 1 — Use SD Card Formatter (Recommended)​

1. Download the official tool from the SD Association:
   https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter
2. Open it → pick your SD card (double-check the drive letter).
3. Choose Quick Format → press Format.
   • It automatically handles >32 GB SDXC cards.
   • You’ll get a clean single partition that Balena Etcher can overwrite.

(Balena Etcher doesn’t actually need FAT32; it will write its own Linux partitions anyway.)

You also need to download Balea Etcher to flash the micro SD card.