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Arduino - Burning the Arduino Bootloader

The bootloader is a small piece of software that allows uploading of sketches onto the Arduino board. It comes preprogrammed on the Arduino boards, but when the MCU is bought on its own it usually doesn't have the bootloader preprogrammed. The easiest way to burn the bootloader to standard Atmel chips (ATTINY, ATMEGA ...) is by using a second preprogrammed board as a programmer, which will be covered below. It this example, we will be using a Dasduino CORE to bootload another Dasduino CORE

1. Connect the boards​

Atmel boards are programmed with the SPI interface (MOSI, MISO, SCK signals). Check pinout schemes for both of your boards to find those pins! For this example, both programmer and target board will be Dasduino CORE boards. Connections are available below:

Programmer boardTarget board
MISO (D12)MISO (D12)
MOSI (D11)MOSI (D11)
SCK (D13)SCK (D13)
D(10), or any digital pin!RESET
VCCVCC
GNDGND
Connection example
Connection example

2. Burn the bootloader​

Connect the programmer board to the computer via USB. In Arduino IDE open the ArduinoISP example by going to: File->Examples->11.ArduinoISP->ArduinoISP.

Path to the example
Path to the example

Upload the code to the programmer board.

After succesfully uploading the code, go to Tools->Board and change it to the target board. For Tools->Programmer select Arduino as ISP and click Burn Bootloader

Path to the example
Path to the example

3. Troubleshooting​

avrdude: Yikes!  Invalid device signature.
         Double check connections and try again, or use -F to override
         this check.

Error while burning the bootloader: Failed chip erase: uploading error: exit    status 1

Check your selection in Tools->Programmer.

Error while burning the bootloader: Failed chip erase: uploading error: exit status 1

Make sure you've selected the target board in Tools->Board and that you've connected the RESET pin correctly.

Error while burning bootloader.
avrdude: Error: Could not find USBtiny device (0x2341/0x49)

Make sure you've selected Arduino as ISP in Tools->Programmer, and not ArduinoISP or other similar options.

Make sure that your target board is wired properly.