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RE: [ts-7000] Re: How to clone contents of flash memory -

To: "" <>
Subject: RE: [ts-7000] Re: How to clone contents of flash memory -
From: "William C. Landolina" <>
Date: Mon, 7 Dec 2009 21:44:55 -0500
> -----Original Message-----
> From:   On
> Behalf Of a98z3
> Sent: Monday, December 07, 2009 9:27 PM
> To: 
> Subject: [ts-7000] Re: How to clone contents of flash memory
>
> I decided to ask Technologic Solutions also, and received this answer
> to my question (haven't tried it yet but it makes sense):
>
> The issue here is that there is no standard actual size for a "2GB" SD
> card.  Each model of card sets some blocks in reserve and supplies less
> than 2GB for storage.  If your source card is larger than the card you
> are copying to, this will happen.  The recommended solution is to
> create
> an image that is a little smaller, leaving a cushion, (1.8 GB is safe)
> and create other cards from that.  To create such an image, you will
> want to partition your card so that some blocks at the end are not
> used,
> create a dd image of that card, and then truncate it intelligently.

This is a problem with both SD and CompactFlash cards - I've been buying both 
in bulk from "white box" suppliers and often find that the actual size of the 
memory is 10-15% smaller than expected.  This is one of the reasons that my 
generic 1G SD cards cost less than $5 and name brand vendors have quoted 
$15-$25 for the "same size" card.

I don't think this is so much about "no standard size" for 2G - it is a matter 
that consumers generally don't care about the exact size of a memory card and 
the manufacturers need some place to put their chips with a lot of bad sectors. 
 The "name brand" memory card vendors spec sheets list exactly how big the 
memory is and guarantee that.  100 generic 1G SD cards from the same shipment 
from the same "white box" vendor may have 100 slightly different capacities.

In production I'm formatting the cards for 80% of their official size with good 
success - whatever is left is in an unused partition.

Good luck,
Bill.

>
> --- In  "Steve Drake" <> wrote:
> >
> > I have been using the 'dd' method of cloning cards as suggested by
> Pierre
> > in his previous message, quoted below. It has worked a few times but
> has not
> > been a reliable method so far. I am running Ubuntu 9.04 on my
> develpment PC
> > where I am trying to do the card imaging.
> >
> > The source and destination SD cards are both 2GB in size.
> >
> > I create the image like this:
> >
> >    $ sudo dd if=/dev/sde of=2gb-v1.07a2-image.dd
> >    3962880+0 records in
> >    3962880+0 records out
> >    2028994560 bytes (2.0 GB) copied, 1964.36 s, 1.0 MB/s
> >
> > I frequently (>50%) get an error when I try to write the image to an
> SD
> > card:
> >
> >    $ sudo dd if=2gb-v1.07a2-image.dd of=/dev/sde
> >    dd: writing to `/dev/sde': No space left on device
> >    3948545+0 records in
> >    3948544+0 records out
> >    2021654528 bytes (2.0 GB) copied, 5293.45 s, 382 kB/s
> >
> > I also tried writing the image to the SD card with pcopy, and got
> similar
> > results:
> >
> >    $ sudo pcopy 2gb-v1.07a1-image.dd /dev/sde
> >    Copying from 2gb-v1.07a1-image.dd to /dev/sde (start in 3
> seconds)...
> >    Copied: 1927 MB (1 MB/sec)     -
> >    pcopy: /dev/sde: Error: Write of 1048576 bytes failed at
> 2021654528: No
> > space left on device
> >
> > Note that it runs a long time before it fails (an hour or two on my
> USB 1.0
> > PC).
> >
> > How can there not be enough space on the destination drive? Is it
> common for
> > SD cards to have bad blocks and would that be causing my trouble?
> >
> > I (also) tried making sure any/all partitions were deleted first from
> the
> > target SD card with fdisk before starting the write operation to the
> SD
> > card.
> > That didn't help.
> >
> > I tried again to write the image to the card, with the 'direct' flag
> this
> > time:
> >    $ sudo dd if=2gb-v1.07a2-image.dd of=/dev/sde oflag=direct
> >
> > But I lost patience after about 3 hours and aborted the command (and
> saw
> > that
> > it reported that it was only about 1/2 way done).
> >
> > In many dd command examples that I've looked at, the
> conv=notrunc,noerror
> > options are used. According to 'man' this tells dd to not truncate
> the
> > output
> > file and not to stop on errors. But I don't know exactly what that
> means. So
> > I decided to give it a try, but still got an error:
> >    $ sudo dd if=2gb-v1.07a2-image.dd of=/dev/sde conv=notrunc,noerror
> >    dd: writing to `/dev/sde': No space left on device
> >    3948545+0 records in
> >    3948544+0 records out
> >    2021654528 bytes (2.0 GB) copied, 5129.66 s, 394 kB/s
> >
> > Now, even though I get errors, sometimes the SD card seems to boot
> and run
> > okay in the TS-7350, but I am not sure I trust it. I've had cases
> where it
> > did not boot/run okay.
> >
> > I just ran the same command on another SD card that is the same brand
> (PNY)
> > and size (2GB), and this time no errors:
> >
> >    $ sudo dd if=2gb-v1.07a2-image.dd of=/dev/sde conv=notrunc,noerror
> >    3962880+0 records in
> >    3962880+0 records out
> >    2028994560 bytes (2.0 GB) copied, 5082.2 s, 399 kB/s
> >
> > What's going on? I'm running out of ideas so I am posting this to the
> forum,
> > hoping someone has a suggestion. Thanks!
> >
> > Steve
> >
> > > -------------------------------------------------------------------
> --
> > > 4b. Re: How to clone contents of flash memory
> > > Posted by: "pierrot lafouine" 
> > > pierrotlafouine
> > > Sat Nov 7, 2009 3:11 pm (PST)
> > >
> > > Take the FLASh out of the TS and put it on a SD card reader on your
> Linux
> > > PC.
> > > In console write commands :
> > > dmesg | tail
> > >
> > > You should see someting like this :
> > > [188307.934633] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write
> through
> > > [188307.935617] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] 3842048 512-byte hardware sectors
> (1967
> > > MB)
> > > [188307.936240] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
> > > [188307.936242] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 4b 00 00 08
> > > [188307.936244] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write
> through
> > > [188307.936247] sdb: sdb1 sdb2
> > > In this specific case SD card reader is mounted on sdb (see [sdb])
> > >
> > > Then copy your flash to a file :
> > > dd if=/dev/sdb of=/yourpath/yourfilename.dd
> > >
> > > To copy yourfilename.dd to new flash (must be same size):
> > > dd if=/yourpath/yourfilename.dd of=/dev/sdb
> > >
> > > Just be careful with syntax and with dd commands, you can make big
> mess.
> > > Cheers!
> > >
> > > Pierre
> > >
> > > > -----------------------------------------------------------------
> ----
> > > > To: 
> > > > From: 
> > > > Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 22:48:54 +0000
> > > > Subject: [ts-7000] Re: How to clone contents of flash memory
> > > >
> > > > Ok, this posting appeared a long time ago, but it looks like
> nobody
> > > > answered
> > > > it so far.
> > > >
> > > > I have the same problem: One TS-7800 was set up with a lot of
> effort,
> > > > and now
> > > > I want to copy the whole flash memory to ten more TS-7800's as
> simple
> > > > and
> > > > less error prone as possible.
> > > >
> > > > Maybe via the SD-card or an USB-stick or even via SSH, I don't
> care, but
> > > > what
> > > > is the way to create several clones of one embeddedARM?
> > > >
> > > > Thanks a lot
> > > >
> > > > Achim
> > > >
> > > > -----------------------------------------------------------------
> ----
> > > > --- In  Janne Mäntyharju
> <janne.mantyharju@>
> > > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Hi!
> > > > >
> > > > > Is it possible to make image of whole flash memory contents
> using
> > > > > redboot (kernel + root image)? How to write image back to new
> device?
> > > > > I have one prototype of device using TS-7250 ready and I'm
> searching
> > > > > for
> > > > > easiest way to clone contents of it.
> > > > >
> > > > > Thanks for reply!
> > > > >
> >
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>


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