sorry, what is difficult to understand from the posted link?
It will let your Pi5 Show up as as a Mass Storage Device (MSD) to the host PC. The host PC can access the NVMe like any USB thumb drive -> it should be simple to use RPIimager for flashing the OS, making the settings for enabling WiFi/SSH and the write all that to the Pi5's NVMe.
That's exactly the way how one would flash a Compute Module with EMMC.
usbboot is here https://github.com/raspberrypi/usbboot - looking at that might explain how it's done.
use an empty uSD inserted in your Pi5 and simply try it!
It will let your Pi5 Show up as as a Mass Storage Device (MSD) to the host PC. The host PC can access the NVMe like any USB thumb drive -> it should be simple to use RPIimager for flashing the OS, making the settings for enabling WiFi/SSH and the write all that to the Pi5's NVMe.
That's exactly the way how one would flash a Compute Module with EMMC.
usbboot is here https://github.com/raspberrypi/usbboot - looking at that might explain how it's done.
use an empty uSD inserted in your Pi5 and simply try it!
The 'problem' with your request ist that you want to do it headless. With HDMI and keyboard connected Network Install is the most simplest way of writing an OS Image to an NVMe...
It seems like the Pi systems are mature enough to make NVMe the preferred mass storage device and startup volume. What would be the point of using an SD card with a Pi 5?
Statistics: Posted by aBUGSworstnightmare — Tue Dec 23, 2025 6:56 am