Etcher image fails to validate

Question

I don't know if this is in the right place but...

I'm trying to write this image of Raspbian Stretch--which I believe should be the most recent--to a micro SD to run it on a Pi 3:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/

This is the micro SD I'm using:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/32GB-Class-10-Micro-SD-TF-Flash-Memory-Card-Card-reader-for-Cell-Phone-Camera/152861369998?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&var=452606672660&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649

I don't have an SD reader on my PC, so I'm using the USB adapter pictured. Etcher will write the image but fails validation. I thought maybe it still wrote alright anyway so I popped it into the Pi and I got this error:

Could not expand filesystem

There is also mention of a few missing files. I did some digging and most sources agree that it looks like a faulty write. The typical solution is to use Etcher (ha) so I'm guessing the problem is that somehow Etcher doesn't like the adapter.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Answer 1

If Etcher can't verify the SD card, it's possible that the card is bad in some way. The Pi Foundation recommends that you use only name-brand cards (such as SanDisk cards), while the card you linked doesn't have a brand on it. It's extremely unlikely that Etcher would be able to write to the device but not read from it properly, so the issue is likely not with the USB adapter. If the OS was installed but fails to boot, then the most probable issue is a failing SD card.

Do you have another SD card handy to attempt to flash, preferably a name-brand one? You could try to flash the Raspberry Pi image onto that, and from there narrow down whether the issue is with the card or the computer/adapter/Etcher.