So there's this Pi (Raspberry Pi 4 Model B)

My installation journey;

First I bought the Pi from Amazon for an amount of ?5,967.

https://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B07XT1QJ4S/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1

You might be tempted to think that that's that. But it is never that easy with computers.

There were additional components needed or I had to buy them to get it running as per my plan.

I wanted to use my old TV as a monitor, it supports HDMI input. So I had to buy a HDMI cable (micro to standard port).

It cost me ?235.

https://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B08PW6W54V/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Next up for storage and booting, I bought the below SSD card for a sum of ?439.

https://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B0BDRVFDKP/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1

This SD card needs to be loaded up with our OS. I intended to flash Kali Linux OS on it.

For that, first, you need to connect this memory card to your already existing system.

To get this card listed as a drive in your system you either had to have a separate card reader on you or your laptop or the system should have a card reader built onto it.

I had this very old card reader on me:

It had two slots on it: SD and microSD

My unique problem starts here:

I inserted my card into the microSD and the Windows was just not recognizing the card, it kept popping the error something to the effect of "Please insert your disk". I mean the card reader was getting recognized but Windows recognized it as a reader without a card in it. I checked the storage space by seeing the properties and it showed 0 disk space.

To solve this problem, I inserted the card into my Android phone and it formatted the card. After that, using the card reader, my card was recognized.

After this, I installed the official Imager (the software which will put the OS in our SD card):

https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/

And the OS itself: Kali Linux (ARM version for Pi 4 - 64 bit)

https://www.kali.org/get-kali/#kali-arm

To know more about installing Kali Linux OS on the SD card:

https://davidbombal.wiki/kalilinuxpi

Trying to image the card with Pi Imager I was facing this issue:

This error also caused the earlier problem to resurface, as in, it caused my memory card to be unrecognizable again.

Both these above problems were gruelling, to say the least. I suspected the file system to be an issue and upon research got to know that apparently, Pi requires the exFAT filesystem for the SD card. Thought this was the problem and again I put the card into my Android phone and made the card readable but when I tried to format it to FAT system (hoping FAT32 would work) found out that Windows by default does not support the card to be formattable into a FAT system with the support for 64 GB memory space.

To solve this issue, I downloaded this exe (guiformat.exe):

https://ridgecrop.co.uk/index.htm?guiformat.htm

And formatted the card to a FAT32 system with support for 64 GB storage space.

This time around also Pi Imager threw the same error "Error writing to storage". Again this makes the card non-readable.

Someone wrote in the Pi forums that using a USB 2.0 slot for the card reader worked for him, so I did the same and switched from USB 3.0 to 2.0, but still no luck.

It was late at night and I was almost about to wind up but thought I should try one last method.

I was currently using the latest Pi imager: v1.7.5 and thought that could be a problem.

I downloaded the oldest version available from GitHub: v1.2 and installed it.

https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-imager/releases/tag/v1.2

Again I had to put the card in the Android phone and format it, making it 64 GB through guiformat.exe and initiate the imaging.

This time too the screen got stuck, as it was getting stuck earlier, lost hope and decided to wind up. Just when I was about to shut down the system, the imaging started. 1% writing -> 2% writing...

There goes my sleep...

After the card was ready I inserted it into the board.

Note that to prevent the static electricity from damaging the board, I discharged myself off of it by touching the grounded PSU of my shut-down PC and additionally, I also wore rubber gloves.

It was recommended to use the official USB-C power supply with the 5.1V 3A output. Keeping the long run in mind, I shelled out another ?830.

https://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B07XY8F3P7/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

But please note that it works just fine even without this special charger, I gave power to the Pi via my phone charger's USB 3.0 power cable connecting it to my PC's USB 3.0 slot.

Let us connect all the attachments. (Power + HDMI + Mouse & Keyboard + Ethernet)

Let's turn on the power switch. The red and green light will lit upon the power reception.

The monitor will go like this :

And I go like this:

Always a pleasure to see the boot screen, always;)

Thereafter, it's your usual Kali machine.

Login with username:kali and password: kali

And go crazy.

The good thing about Raspberry Pi 4 Model B is that it comes with monitor mode enabled for WiFi, so you can learn some basic WiFi hacking in it.

Please note that you do not need a monitor, an HDMI cable, a keyboard or a mouse to get the Pi running if you have an already existing system, say, a laptop or a PC, you can use Putty with a VNC viewer to enable access to the Pi. Please go through the below blog to know more.

https://www.instructables.com/How-to-Setup-Raspberry-Pi-Without-Monitor-and-Keyb/

Also, you can boot the OS with a flash drive or through the internet. Please watch to learn more:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shChBhapdTo&ab_channel=GaryExplains

Thank you for reading!!!