Install Raspberry Pi 4 using an 8TB USB stick.
Install Raspberry Pi 4 using an 8TB USB stick.
Thanks for the good energy, though I’m not sure what it means to be a rubber duck.
Rubber duck serves as a tool where the assistant is a rubber duck in a bathtub. It doesn’t say much, just sits there empty-headed and looking. Talking to it can help the person clarify their ideas, offering clarity that leads them to solve the problem themselves.
raspberry pi runs debian, so i used the sd boot method to configure everything. after installing raspian bulleseye 64 on a usb drive, i updated it using the mini tool partition wizard to change the mbr/gpt files. when i rebooted to the sd card, i opened gparted via add/remove software and chose both normal and common data partitions. i expanded my ext partition to 7.22, which took about 20 minutes. after that, i created a linux swap file of 8.89. trying to set ram to 8100 gave me a huge amount of memory—remembering that pts uses more space than the created partition. in terminal, blkid | grep /dev/sda showed the partuuid. i edited drive labled boot /media/pi/boot, copied the ext4 partuuid into cmdline.txt, saved it, and then modified fstab in /media/pi/etc. changing both vfat and ext4 entries to match what was in cmdline.txt. this should be a system file; if editing failed, i used the terminal to edit directly. first, changed to /media/pi/rootfs/etc, set chmod 777 on fstab, saved the file. it froze briefly but then closed and rebooted. since both os versions are bootable from the usb, everything worked. i activated linux swap with sudo swapon -a and installed samba via apt-get install samba. the link between commands was helpful.
Another potential solution is MBR2GPT, a Windows deployment tool available on Microsoft documentation.
I needed to remove certain components for a fresh setup because many items I didn’t use, and the old Windows version still left traces even after uninstalling. I discovered a GitHub guide on building a system restore image, which I planned to apply. The restoration process didn’t go well at first, but I learned that GParted couldn’t display the correct partition UUID. I realized the available info only showed the media name, not the actual device. I switched to using DiskGenius to open and save files from an ext4 partition. I noticed after attempting a GPT conversion for the initial boot, the fstab file wasn’t set correctly—files were read-only, and commands that should have worked didn’t. It became clear it was best to perform the conversion beforehand.
The workflow I followed was:
1. Install Pi image on an SD card or small USB drive.
2. Set up a smaller Pi as a test system.
3. Use DiskGenius to open and save partitions from the larger HDD.
4. Edit the fstab file after running the initial Pi setup.
5. Check the rootfs drive with `blkid | grep /dev/sdb`—it showed the correct partition layout.
6. Modify `cd /rootfs`, list directories, and change permissions with `sudo chmod 777`.
7. Install GParted on a Ventoy USB stick to resize partitions.
8. Run `gparted` on the Ventoy USB to expand the partition (command not fully remembered).
After several attempts, the partition extension in GParted took around three hours and successfully increased the size from 3GB to 7TB. DiskGenius helped with file management, but I still faced challenges updating the fstab after setup.
I'm working on setting up a system image for my new project. It needs to be reusable for a fresh install, such as a Windows 7 image creator, which can be saved to another partition or volume. I'm also aiming to support running Graylog inside a Docker container, especially on ARM64 architecture, since that's the only setup I'm aware of.
The simplest method to update your Pi image is to use Pinn with the Pi Imager tool, select "Misc," then Pinn Multi Boot OS. If you encounter issues or need to refresh the OS, press Shift during the boot load screen to access repair options or install a different image. Initially, I installed Ubuntu 64-bit Desktop, Raspberry Pi OS, and Kali Linux 3. When the Docker setup broke my GUI, I switched back to Raspberry Pi OS and then tried Kali 3 Gig updates. Each OS required about 30GB on a 128GB SD card. I found a more affordable, faster SD card for $20, which improved performance significantly. Now I’m using it as an external storage drive for large downloads like Windows updates.