On 30 June 2011 04:10, AJ ONeal coolaj86@gmail.com wrote:
The cards are from the same manufacturer, and exactly the same size. I've tried dd and not only does it take closer to 2.5 hours instead of 10 minutes, it yields the same results. dd if=/dev/sde of=/dev/sdf bs=8M
<Though I don't think it will solve the problem if Tom's suggestion didn't already help. But still a few points to note>
This bs=8M doesn't seem the best/useful option. Also we need to remember 'dd' runs beneath the file-system layer and will copy bytes from image to the disk. Most of which(as per 2.5hours/10min) seems non-relevant data in this case.
Assuming you create only primary partitions and you have the working 'master-copy' in /dev/sde, maybe you could try $ dd if=/dev/sde of=master_mbr.img bs=512 count=1 Then 'burn' only the good master mbr on all cards. $ dd if=master_mbr.img of=/dev/sdf //and other cards
Once you unplug->plug the cards, it should be possible to have a script that formats the newly detected partitions(albeit malformed[*]) and do rysnc to copy the load. Btw, there just might be a way to emulate 'soft' unplug->plug of storage over USB using sysfs or somthing, that I am not aware of, which could make the whole process scripted.
The duplication process is a usb hub with many card readers attached and a script that > creates a fake raid 1 (/dev/md0 sans raid info) out of the cards and copies the used bytes.
If I had money to burn I would bet this scripted raid + usb hub thing has unveiled some bug that fails the almighty dd method.
[*] It might be prudent to also script the capture first sector of each partition of the 'master' card. And burn them respectively after the unplug-plug of 'copy' cards.
Rgds, -j