Flashing OS from Windows
The next step is to download the BalenaEtcher utility.
Install BalenaEtcher and launch it. In its main menu, click on Select Image and choose the Mervis OS image.
Upon selecting the image, a disk drive selector will enable. Choose the SD card drive.
Finish the process by clicking on Flash!
Maximum caution is necessary during the flash. If a wrong drive is selected, it may result in a loss of data.
After finishing the flash your OS will detect new disk drives. As these drives are set up specifically for Mervis OS, your operating system cannot access them and will request their formatting. Close the formatting prompt by clicking on Cancel.
Windows OS will also notify you about the drive being unaccessible. Ignore this message as well.
If the OS image flash was successful, the card will be detected as boot upon its reinserting into the PC. Before inserting it into the controller you can also perform an additional, optional step → enabling the SSH. The easiest method of doing so is to open the boot card root folder and create a text file named ssh.txt or ssh without suffix here.
At this moment, the Mervis OS is safely flashed onto your SD card. Unplug the card from your PC, remove it from the adapter (if you used one) and insert the card into your Unipi controller.
Insert the card ONLY if the controller's power supply is unplugged!
Insert the card with its back up (eg. golden connectors facing up). Plug the power supply in.
With a new SD card, the controller's startup will take more time than usual - approximately 3 minutes. This is due to the necessary OS configuration.
