New to Raspberry PI

Look here, under "Create your own":

http://elinux.org/RPi_Easy_SD_Card_Setup

Use the Raspbian "Wheezy" image.  If you have a Windows computer, Win32DiskImager is the easiest method to write to the sd card, but there are instructions here on using "dd" as well.

Thanx to both of you. I think pjc123's reply is closest to what I need. I did not mean casuse anyone to think that I am attempting to boot Raspbian on my X86. In fact I did say that is what I did not do and therefore I have no real way to test the image as it was failing on my PI. Either one or both of those links will help me write the image as long as they are not Windows dependent. I am not at my work PC now so I will have to thank you and get at this task tomarrow.

Regards.

As a side note, since so many people make the same mistake, when you do the checksum (SHA-1) check on the downloaded image file, you perform it on the .zip file not the unzipped file.

Also, here is the main page of that wiki, which has a ton of information regarding the raspberry pi:

http://elinux.org/RaspberryPiBoard

and here is a good series of magazines for beginners.  Press the arrow directly under the displayed magazines to get to all the older issues:

http://www.themagpi.com/

Actually I did not think to check the hash. Very bad. Also oddly enough I seem to resort to win32 md5 utilities for what ever reason. I think it is do to the fact that there are so many related and confusing md5 options, most of which that do not do what I need. That said I think there is reason to trust this md5 hash checker.

I have gone through various checksum programs on Windows over the years, but the latest one I found is the best and quickest to use, called HashTab. When you right click on a file in Windows Explorer and select Properties, you can see that HashTab adds a new tab called “File Hashes”, and it can generate pretty much every checksum out there.  I can't remember offhand what Linux program that I use.

http://www.implbits.com/HashTab.aspx

Yeah the win32 did fail but I simply used the help pages that were linked here and the command line md5 option worked for me.

How ever I am still not getting my PI to boot. I am begining to wonder if my PI has hardware issues. But I am going to plod on and try the net install option. I forget what it is called. But it seems like the best I can do at this point.

Note that there is a very small 0.02% return rate of all raspberry pis, and out of that, half of those are testing OK and never had a problem in the first place; so don't rush to return it right away (The number one issue appearing to be inadequate power supplies and/or power usb cables).  When you say that it will not boot, what are you basing this on?  Are the LED's indicating that it is not booting, (Which is what you should go by), or the fact that there is no display on the monitor?  First, go through the following troubleshooting steps, as they resolve most problems:

http://elinux.org/R-Pi_Troubleshooting

Note that there is a very small 0.02% return rate of all raspberry pis, and out of that, half of those are testing OK and never had a problem in the first place; so don't rush to return it right away (The number one issue appearing to be inadequate power supplies and/or power usb cables).  When you say that it will not boot, what are you basing this on?  Are the LED's indicating that it is not booting, (Which is what you should go by), or the fact that there is no display on the monitor?  First, go through the following troubleshooting steps, as they resolve most problems:

http://elinux.org/R-Pi_Troubleshooting

> Note that there is a very small 0.02% return rate of all raspberry pis, and out of that, half of those are testing OK and never had a problem in the first place;

I am a bit doubtful of your figures.  If around 1.2M RPi's are sold per year, or about 100K per month,

and .02% are returned, that would be 20 units returned per month.  If half of those tested OK,

that would be 10 OK units returned per month.    However, the Hynix memory incompatibility

alone reportedly accounts for as many as 5 OK units in a single day, which is not surprising

because the Debian Wheezy soft-float version on the official download page apparently still

has the obsolete firmware, as does the latest Fedora download, as well as many pre-loaded

SD cards still being sold.  And there are lots of reasons besides the Hynix issue for people to

mistakenly believe their RPi is faulty.

Since Farnell manufactures all their RPi's in the well-regarded Sony plant, I would expect their

return rate to be even less than the overall rate, giving E-14 something to really brag about.  

But nothing but silence.

The quote from the raspberry pi organization yesterday was "At the moment, we see returns in the order of about 0.02% of all units".  So yes, sure, they could have waited until returns were at a minimum to make that comment.  You would have to argue with them, not me.  In any event, supplying a device with no certified or included peripherals, having people order parts anywhere at any price or of any quality, and add to that many users with little or no knowledge of electronics, computers, programming, or troubleshooting skills, well I am not at all surprised that they are getting a very high return rate of working pis.  If it wasn't for these forums, it would be much, much higher.  Maybe their intent is to teach troubleshooting skills!

> The quote from the raspberry pi organization yesterday was "At the moment, we see returns in the order of about 0.02% of all units".

I have no idea how to parse that sentence.  As you note, "At the moment" could mean just about anything.

As could "we see".  Is the RPF claiming to see all the returns?

Could it mean that today's mail bag brought in about 0.02% of all units shipped this month?

They have always claimed that OK units were about half of all returns, but I see no logical reason

why the number of OK units should decline at exactly the same rate as the number of broken units.

If they are doing something to reduce the number of faulty units, like attaching the big capacitor better,

or using a more sturdy SD card socket, that would be nice to know, but we don't hear anything along those lines.

However, the Hynix memory incompatibility

alone reportedly accounts for as many as 5 OK units in a single day, which is not surprising

because the Debian Wheezy soft-float version on the official download page

The official distribution is the Raspian hard float version so unless you have some numbers to show that the

Debian distribution is a significant part of the problem I don't see how that is relevant.

as does the latest Fedora download,

Ditto.

And there are lots of reasons besides the Hynix issue for people to

mistakenly believe their RPi is faulty.

Real strong point you're making there.

Since Farnell manufactures all their RPi's in the well-regarded Sony plant, I would expect their

return rate to be even less than the overall rate, giving E-14 something to really brag about.  

But nothing but silence.

Which proves absolutely nothing at all unless there is some rule I am not aware of that requires

companies to brag about how well they do their jobs.

I have no idea how to parse that sentence.  As you note, "At the moment" could mean just about anything.

As could "we see".  Is the RPF claiming to see all the returns?

Could it mean that today's mail bag brought in about 0.02% of all units shipped this month?

How about these things vary month to month statistically speaking and this is what we are seeing now.

Unless of course there is some deeply hidden and sinister ulterior motive that lurks behind the statement.

If they are doing something to reduce the number of faulty units, like attaching the big capacitor better,

or using a more sturdy SD card socket, that would be nice to know, but we don't hear anything along those lines.

Again this proves nothing. They are not required to tell you or anybody else what their QC is (or is not) doing.

It would be nice if they did, but I have not seen either of the two problems you specifically mentioned on any

of the three I own. I especially like the big capcitor one as I have not heard anything about this for many months

now. Maybe they fixed it and just considered it something they should do without bragging about it. Then again,

maybe not .....

> The official distribution is the Raspian hard float version so unless you have some numbers to show that the Debian distribution is a significant part of the problem I don't see how that is relevant.

Yes, the download page says Raspbian hard float is the "recommended" OS,

but that doesn't mean it's the only one that gets downloaded.  The others are

there for good reasons, such as for use with the Oracle JVM.

> as does the latest Fedora download,

> Ditto.

Yes, Fedora has a relatively small share of the RPi market. 

But even a small share of 100K units/month is likely to be

more than single digits, especially when combined with the

other listed sources of obsolete firmware.

The RPF's own figures of 5 Hynix issues per day are inconsistent

with a total of 10 mistakenly assumed faulty returns per month.

>> And there are lots of reasons besides the Hynix issue for people to mistakenly believe their RPi is faulty.

> Real strong point you're making there.

You missed the point completely.  If 0.02% of all units are returned, and 50% of those are mistakenly

believed to be faulty, then about 10 units per month are mistakenly believed to be faulty,

including 5 units per day due to the Hynix issue.  This leaves very little room for

all other reasons why people might mistakenly believe their RPi is faulty.

Edited to add:

On June 1, 2012, Eben wrote:

"Right now the RMA rate is roughly 1 in 500, and only around half the returned units that I have seen are actually defective;"

http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=6822&hilit=eben&start=65

On May 08, 2013, Liz wrote:

"At the moment, we see returns in the order of about 0.02% of all units ...As usually happens when we troubleshoot returns, though, we found that around half of Jessica’s Pis weren’t faulty at all."

http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/3866

Since Liz's quote is so similar to Eben's ("At the moment" vs. "Right now", 1 in 500 vs 0.02%, half are defective vs half not faulty),

I think it's entirely possible that Liz is quoting Eben rather than providing updated statistics.

Liz may have simply shifted the decimal point by one place by mistake

when converting 1 in 500 (0.2%) to 0.02%.

That would explain why there was no note of a ten-fold reduction in

the return rate, which otherwise would have been noteworthy.