Hi Guys,

I have a embedded development box which has a CF ( compact flash)card and it contains linux fedora 11 OS followed by complete development code , scripts etc .

Objective -> I need to take the image from CF present in the development box and upload this image into new CF cards so that when they are connected into new development machine they are ready to use without any need to load OS , development scripts etc.

What I have done so far ->

1) I Have attached Card reader into my Ubuntu machine and took the image from the old CF card and save it for future use.

example -> sudo dd if=/dev/sdg1 of=./backup_image.img bs=4096 , conv=sync, noerror
The image is saved under the name backup_image.img

2) I have taken new CF card and attached it to reader and then umount it
sudo umount /dev/sdg1

3) write zero in all blocks into new CF
ex-> sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdg1
4) once step 3 is completed , I have copied saved image into new CF card.

ex-> sudo dd if=backup_image.img of=/dev/sdg1

Result -> Successful.

But when I actually connected the new CF card into development machine , it failed to boot up .

I have compared lode CF and new CF and both has identical filesystems i.e ext3 and both has used exactly same bytes .

I am completely clueless like what I am missing here?

Thanks and regards,
Sam

You just copied a partition which didn't include the boot record. Copy the entire card (e.g. /dev/sdg) instead.

Might be possible to just add in a loader to this image.


Personally I don't like the noerror switch. I want to know about errors.

Hi Jefro,

Thnaks for reply. Well there is no error display. It just didnt boot up . when I connected my embedded system with serial port . I have noticed it display manufacturer informationa nd then stops .

@eekster. Thanks foir the info. Do you suggest me how would I include boot record.

Repeat what you did before but use /dev/sdg without a number on the end.

Make sure the CF card is marked active/bootable.

Does your BIOS support removable disk boot-up?
If not, as the above say, include it to the boot record.
Can you tell me what OS do you currently use?

eeekster already told you the problem and the solution.

Make an image that was created by sdx/ and not sdx1 then copy it back sdx and not sdx1.

I was going to re-phrase it but you simply can't image the first partition and expect it to boot.

It may be possible to put the loader on it. If the original has syslinux then one might attempt syslinux but try eekster's suggestion first.

I agree that the card has to be a full replication of a hard drive with all the signals. As stated may even state bootable.