Ok, from the above I take it that Ian has been simply deleting the files from the root of the first partition that Windows can ‘see’ and then copied over all the new files from the updated version after unzipping, and it has worked OK for him.
However Lee has had issues with that method, and so always reformats the Micro SDHC card before copying over the new files.
When I installed the original software, I simply copied over the files into the root of the brand new SD cards, without formatting them and all was well.
So I decided that as I have 3 units to update to PilotAware-20151003, that I would try both methods and see how things went.
First I had a look at the SD card that had the original PA software build using Mini Tool Partition Wizard on my PC; the SD card had 3 partitions, 1 called RECOVERY which was the one Windows can see and contains the image files, this partition was 354.52MB, 2 was not named, was hidden, and was 7GB, and 3 was called SETTINGS and was also hidden or not in a format that Windows recognises and was 32MB.
So I simply deleted all the files from the root of the SD card in Windows and then copied over all the new ones from the unzipped image folder for PilotAware-20151003.
I inserted this SD into the Pilot aware and powered it up and away she went, timings were 0 to 14 seconds to initial boot load, 14 seconds to 6minutes 20 seconds to Format the SD Card partitions, extract the filesys, from 6:20 to 7:35 to display all the boot stuff on screen and display the final Configuration OK message. So 7 Minutes 35 Seconds from initial power on to build completed and the Pilot Aware up and running.
For the next unit I first formatted the SD card using SDFormatter v4.0 using only default parameters, and although the partition was displayed as 354 MB, after the format was completed, the SD card contained just a single partition at 7.4GB. I then copied over the new files to the root of this SC card and popped it into the PilotAware unit, powered up, and away she went just like the first unit, and the timings were just about identical. When it was finished there were 3 partitions on the SD card at RECOVERY at 356MB, no name at 7.0GB and SETTINGS at 32MB.
So it seems that both methods work, but I will always reformat the SD card using SDReformatter v4 as it is probably the most reliable way to go. The subsequent repartitioning is clearly the first thing the image build process does, and it makes sense to give it a clean, clear reformatted SD card to begin with, but clearly it is possible to get away with just deleting the files and copying over the new ones.
Hopefully this may be of use/interest to others.
