Catch's way to flash PiMP

[Catch22]

It seems like a fair number of people have trouble flashing their disks when they first start. I had some of the same issues and found some good tips to make things go successfully so I'm going to share those here so maybe people see them and I can link people to here.

First off lets cover the materials we will need
1x Host computer running Windows.
1x SSD or HDD (NO USB DRIVES no longer supported)
1x Available SATA Cable
1x Available SATA Power Cable

I happened to have an old HP workstation with 2gb of ram and a core duo sitting around that I could use as a host. I started off by making sure I could run Windows 10 on it (or any Windows version supported by HDDRawCopy). While I had it booted up I downloaded "HDDRawCopy 1.10 portable" as well as the PiMP install file.
Once downloaded use either 7zip or WinRAR to extract the PiMP install file. DO NOT use the windows decompression feature. It does not always work right and may lead to trouble when flashing PiMP OS.
At this point I shut the computer off and removed the side panel. Once inside I found myself an available SATA data and power cable by unplugging the CD drive since I won't be using it. You can use USB to SATA adapters instead but they must be of decent quality to make reliable flashes.
Next I hooked up my SSD/HDD (16gb SSD in this case) and booted the computer. Once logged into Windows run command prompt as administrator and type diskpart this should open diskpart which is an application for managing storage media like our SSD.
In diskpart type list disk, this will give you a list of the currently recognized physical disks. You should be able to find the disk you are trying to flash by its size. Once you have found the disk type select disk [disk number] where [disk number] is the corresponding number from the list.
Now that we have the correct disk selected we are going to clean it. This WILL remove ALL files and file structures from the disk so be sure you did not select the wrong disk. Type clean.
Now we will need to re-initialize the disk so we will start by verifying that the correct disk is still selected by typing list disk you should see a "*" next to your selected disk. If not then re-select it using "select disk [disk number]".
Now type create partition primary.
Next type select partition 1.
Then type active.
Now we can format the partition using the command format FS=NTFS label=PiMPOS quick. The last step is to select a drive letter for the newly cleaned disk using this command assign letter=P. Make sure the letter you select is not in use by another drive. Now we can exit using the exit command.

At this point we have a drive in the best possible state to attempt to flash it. So now we will do just that.
Start by opening HDDRawCopy 1.10 protable.
Select the File option in the list and navigate to where you extracted the PiMP install file earlier and select it.
Press "Continue".
Now select the drive that was just cleaned from the list and begin flashing it. Be patient and if every thing went correctly you should have a perfect bootable PiMP OS drive. MAKE SURE YOU SHUTDOWN THE PC TO REMOVE THE DRIVE!

Cheers and happy mining!

[Anjin]

Great writeup Catch22. I hope it helps folks! Thanks for taking the time to detail your experience and provide this tutorial.

[melt]

Thanks again Catch22 ~ this is a great writeup for partitioning disks in windows.

Note: add quick to the format command for instant success!

[Catch22]

Definitely a good note to add quick if you don't want to spend hours at the computer :) Fixed that in the post now! Also thanks for including of an image of expected output. Great addition!