A board (nanopi neo) collects some information and stores it to SD card. Users than change the SD card and open it on PC (windows). Due windows limitation, there is only one (first) partition (fat/ntfs) can be visible.  Current mainline image for nanopi neo contains only one ext4 partition, so I tried to gparted it (moved first partition and made new FAT16 one), but for some reason, the image did not boot. So I'm looking for info, how to make two partitions properly.

Don't move this first/main partition, simply shrink it at the end, and add new FAT partition at the end of the SDCard.

 

@martinayotte Thank You. I'v tried to make new FAT partition at the end of SD, but it seems Windows can not see this one. Disk manager says, that second partition is RAW (not formatted), and when I try to format it, Windows destroys first partition for some reason. I guess there is a special partition table, which Windows does not understand.

In such case, since Windows is so stupid, you won't have much choice to have a separate sdcard mounted in a USB reader, having a single FAT partition on this one.

Another solution is to have a Window's folder shared and having your SoC board mounting that CIFS network share.

 

 

@martinayotte Thanks for suggestions. Unfortunately the only one usb port is used by external usb-sensor, and there is no internet access in the field. Probably, I can use secondary usb-port via 2.54 pins, but it requires a lot of hardware modification (include reroute on-the-top board and redesign 3D case).

I'v tried to modify build scripts, and made some hardcode hacks to make an additional partition (first, FAT). At this point, I have to configure u-boot somehow, to boot from second partition, and still looking for variables/script to be modified for it.

 

Better simply upgrade to NanoPi Air and follow this: https://docs.armbian.com/User-Guide_Getting-Started/#how-to-install-to-emmc-nand-sata-usb

 

This way you totally separate your OS installation on eMMC and the data exchange media (which I would consider a basic prerequisit given how much malware exists for Windows that wants to infect removable media)

I heard in a podcast that the latest Windows 10 release (creator) is finally capable to read more than one partition on USB attached storage.
Other question, why can't you use "man in the middle" device with Linux to serve it?
Or USB to Ethernet protocol