New Pi

Yes I did. The last time I did it (a month or two back) I was transferring my boot system from a 4GB to an 8GB card and did it al little differently:

- used cfdisk to create the two partitions on the new card, with the vfat partition the same size as before and the ext3 partition taking up the rest of the card

- used dd to copy each partition over

This did the expected for the vfat partition, but left the ext3 one thinking it was still the original size, but running resize2fs without specifying a size fixed that by resetting the fs size to match the partition.

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martin@   | Martin Gregorie 
gregorie. | Essex, UK 
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Martin Gregorie
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I was refering to the edge connector contacts, not the auxiliary card present/write protect contacts. Incidently, the write protection, unlike for a floppy disk where the drive itself disables the write amp, is implemented only in software.

It's entirely possible to still write to an SD card regardless of the position of the write protect tab (in fact this used by the CHDK software used to access additional SLR like features in Canon P&S cameras (RAW and extended shutter speeds and other features not normally available with the standard firmware).

It is possible to safely unplug flash media provided cached writes are disabled _and_ an activity LED is present to warn you off interrupting any active writing operations. However, I tend to dismount the media first before physically removing it, only resorting to a muttered "Fuck you!" and extrication when windows tells me that the device has requested a system restart which is still pending (usually associated with hard disks rather than flash media).

I don't recall 'breaking' any flash media other than due to defects in their PCB contacts due to their fragility to moderately rough handling. Most of the problems I have witnessed have usually been due to media defects in second hand thumb drives that I've picked up in my local Flea Market for a pound or two from "Maplin Man".

Obviously, I use h2testw to test my flash media (both new and old) since it not only verifies the capacity and integrity of the media, it also provides a performance benchmark.

The read performance figures are usually the more consistent and it's the write speeds which show the greatest differences between different flash media, often a half or quarter of the read speeds, only rarely matching the read speed performance.

I'm using win2k which I suspect may be a factor in this often very wide disparity between the read and write speeds.

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Regards, J B Good
Reply to
Johny B Good

Me too.

Malcolm

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T M Smith 
Using an Iyonix and RISC OS 5.20 in the North Riding of Yorkshire
Reply to
T M Smith

Malcom,

In view of comments else where on this thread, be aware that dd copies blocks without taking any notice of the logical structure (directories and files) in the fs you're copying. I'd say suck it and see with a straight whole-disk 'dd' copy. If it doesn't work, i.e. complains that the data won't fit, you might want to get a larger SD card (8GB don't cost a lot more than 4GB) and then do the job in the following steps:

- look at the source card with cfdisk:

sudo cfdisk /dev/sda

and note the partition sizes and types. Printing them is good because you need the exact partition sizes and sector counts. By careful, because finger trouble can cause damage.

- use cfdisk to create the partitions on the new disk. Create the smaller, VFAT partition first using the exact size of the original. Make the larger ext3 partition occupy the rest of the card - cfdisk offers that choice.

- use dd to copy each partition, e.g. sudo dd if=/dev/sda1 of=/dev/sdb1 sudo dd if=/dev/sda2 of=/dev/sdb2

- if you were to mount the partitions on the new card and look at them with df you'd see that both partitions are the same size as on the older disk despite the extra size you gave the ext3 partition. This is a side effect of the way dd copies a partition, but is easily fixed. Now run resize2fs to fix it: something like:

sudo resize2fs /dev/sdb2

should do the trick.

If your original card was 4GB, df should show that it is around 2/3 full, while your new 8GB card should be under half full. I think this is a benefit because, though I could be wrong, I think this will make wear levelling block shuffling much less frequent because you'll see that the the available unused space has almost trebled.

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martin@   | Martin Gregorie 
gregorie. | Essex, UK 
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Reply to
Martin Gregorie

Thankyou Martin for the clear explanation of the procedure.

Malcolm

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T M Smith 
Using an Iyonix and RISC OS 5.20 in the North Riding of Yorkshire
Reply to
T M Smith

I thought that "badblocks" was ment for testing any kind of storage... I use it with option "random".

Reply to
Nikolaj Lazic

Well I am really struggling here. The card reader I was using last weekend proved to be faulty so has been replaced. With the new reader I reformatted the sd card OK. I have on disk a Rasbian wheezie disc image and burnt that onto the card. Everything seemed to behave normally except the card contained no data after burning. Looked at the card with the Iyo which also showed card empty. Put a download of Noob onto the card using drag & drop. Data went onto card OK. Put card in Pi where it could be seen OK and text files read. This was in a spare usb port. Put card in Pi for booting but would not boot. No indication of any activity, green led. Put card in w7 PC and it displayed files on card OK. Reformatted card again and transfered disk image yet again and again Card was empty.

Took a new fat32 formatted microSD card in an adaptor and burnt he disk image to it. Again nothing on the card after the burning !!!?

Now downloading the disk image afresh even though the previous image had burnt to a standard SD card OK and he card booted OK. Starting to look as though Win32diskimager is at fault and a new download is called for. Anyone any ideas?

Malcolm Smith

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T M Smith 
Using an Iyonix and RISC OS 5.20 in the North Riding of Yorkshire
Reply to
T M Smith

Well; After downloading afresh Win32diskimager and debian wheezy disk image The micro SD card accepted the disk image without problem. It showed up OK on the w7 PC and when put in the Pi it booted up OK.

So success at last

Thanks for all the help from everyone.

Malcolm

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T M Smith 
Using an Iyonix and RISC OS 5.20 in the North Riding of Yorkshire
Reply to
T M Smith

Just had a similar experience here. Image on card visble under windoze would boot in one Pi but not another. The standard card from the other Pi would boot both Pis. The iffy one was an 8 G micro SD in an adapter (branded, red packaging, Sandisk?). With Pi's out of their cases, noticed that the one that the adapter one was slighly more loose in the slot than the full sized card. Pressing the contact areas together would enable that card to boot the Pi. Piece of thickish paper cut to SD card size, placed over the non-contact side of errant card and slid in, good snug fit and reliable booting and operation. B-)

Suspect adapter just a tiny bit under size along the edges and possibly the slot o the Pi a tiny bit oversize meaning the contacts don't quite make it.

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Cheers 
Dave.
Reply to
Dave Liquorice

I'm currently using a pIO microSD Adapter from

formatting link
with an 8GB micro-SD card stuffed into it. I originally bought it because, at roughly half the length of an SD card, it doesn't stick out past the edge of the RPi's PCB. Its a nicely solid bit of kit with the micro-SD installed across it, so it certainly isn't going to fall out and the adapter is a nice firm fit in the RPI's SD card slot. Its only disadvantage is that it is a little too thick for some RPIU cases. I use a Wafer and had to loosen off the screws on the spacer columns to get clearance between the adapter and the bottom acryllic plate.

However, if you're bothered by loose SD cards, this is quite a good solution. I'll use 'em again.

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martin@   | Martin Gregorie 
gregorie. | Essex, UK 
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Reply to
Martin Gregorie

+1, BUT! in my experience, using a normal full-size sd card or adapter may become problematic afterwards. Apparently that firm fit of the pIO adapter stretches the slot and/or spring.
Reply to
A. Dumas

it could be that the firmware on one card was incompatible with the newer pi hardware on the second.

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umop apisdn
Reply to
Jasen Betts

reliable

Both cards will boot in either Pi, provided that when the adapter is used in the newer Pi it has has the bit of paper.

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Cheers 
Dave.
Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Ooo, nice little thing and stops the card sticking out.

And that "wasted" a couple of hours as I browsed through their shop. B-)

I like the Cyantech ones, my first fix for the loose SD card was a bit of soft foam a mm or so thick. Re-reads the page as an SD card is

2.1 mm thick so wonderd why something 1.3 mm thick was a problem. It's an extra 1.3 mm so 3.4 mm overall for the apater. That might be close.
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Cheers 
Dave.
Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Cyntech? No problem with that case and pIO adapter here.

Reply to
A. Dumas

If you have a pillar drill or a drill with a stand then a milling cutter or router bit makes short work of skimming acrylic. You can get them for a couple of quid on eBay.

Reply to
Rob Morley

I don't have either, unfortunately, but a Dremel with a suitable cutter, some care and some Brasso for a finish polish might do it.

I cut slices off some white PVC tubes and used them to increase the effective length of the brass spacers, which is fine as far as it goes but the real problem with that is the length of the perspex slot-in PCB supports, which are just long enough to stay in place but do rattle around.

I'm very fond of Mirabell Mozartkugeln: my last resupply came in a nice transparent octagonal plastic box rather than the usual bent celluloid container. I've just checked and found that the RPi should just fit with the pIO micro-SD adapter but definitely won't with a standard SD card, so I may just modify the octagonal box as soon as it's empty.

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martin@   | Martin Gregorie 
gregorie. | Essex, UK 
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Reply to
Martin Gregorie

--snip-- This oft repeated claim is superficial and not entirely true.

People who like typing imagine that they are communicating with the-little-man-in-the-box, instead of eg. pushing-the-button-for-the-required-floor. Linux: mc is a good example of how/why: locate apropos which ... could/should be menu-accessible.

Yes, as you said helps.

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Unknown

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