Zeroeing out unused sectors before DD-ing ?

Mmm. I suspect you will be out of luck.

The only way to make sectors that are not in use zero that I can think of, is to do a complete write of a blank piece of something..with zeros and copy only the valid data ontop it.

That means working at the file copy level, not the DD level.

i.e. you need to create a new partion system that is all zeros, except the partion inmformation of course, then copy all the files onto it and then zip the lot up.

TNP,

Always a possibility.

Alas, I'm looking for a backup method of an in-use card (updated, installed programs - the works). Would also be nice if I could backup a LibreElec/Kodi configured card with it.

I am not at all sure if I can copy /all/ files (to begin with), and if writing them back to a newly created SD card (using noobs) will result in, functionally, the same as the origional.

Which is why my thoughts went toward a "raw" copy - either the full SD card, or per partition (not sure about which one yet).

And to be honest, I just now realized that clearing out unused sectors on a LibreElec/Kodi configured card might be a problem ... (no user accessible OS).

Regards, Rudy Wieser

For the home partition I've used 'dd if=/dev/zero of=blank' Then once it reports disc full 'rm blank'

Rinse and repeat for any other partitions.

Am 06.03.19 um 09:16 schrieb Folderol:

So do I. Don't forget to wipe the /tmp and /ver/tmp dirs before zeroing. There might be a lot of garbage not needed anymore. Regards JJenssen

The PI seems to work thisaway - please correct me if you know better .

If you do that you have a bootable system irrespetive of partition UUID

# ??? how come no users accessible OS?

You can allegedly ssh into LibreElec. It is a stripped down linux.

So most basic linux comnnads should be there somewhere.

Well in any case using - say - a live linux DVD to boot an intel class machine, and an SD card reader, its no big deal to mount both partitions on the SD card, and file copy their contents onto the host machines disk.

Then you have essentially all the file level info. Which you can zip up.

To create a bootable image in a new SD card, you use a live linux boot system, to create a 40Mbyte vfat partition on a new SD card and format the rest as ext4

Then unzip and copy the files to the partrtions, eject the card and put it in a Pi and boot it..

Find where your partition ends (some clever use of fdisk is likely needed)

use dd and 'seek' option to offset the output, use /dev/zero as input

dd if=/dev/zero of=/your/card seek=some_offset

Now - I've never done it - so I don't guarantee it will work. And I doubt that the space saved is worth the effort.

But in theory, it should be doable

Thats a neat tool. I wonder if it would work on an SD card with wear levelling tho?

I suppose from the point of the OP it wouldnt matter...The SDcar would fully rersent iotse;lf as full of zeroes.

I have to say that the thought of imposing multiple writes on an SD card to clear it fills me with horror.

I'd far rather take an image of it and zero that.

so DD what's there off to an image FIRST, loop mount it, clear it, compress it..

I'd have done cat /dev/zero > dummy.file && rm dummy.file easy to remember and type but apparently a lot slower than zerofree.

The secure delete package has an option to wipe empty space too, sfill -fz would seem to do the job, but I'm not sure how it does it.

Not what you asked for, but I have used 'partimage' on linux systems for years. It will back up the used sectors of a partition. It can also compress the image and/or backup over the network. It is linux only, and seems not to be in the raspbian repository. You could use a linux live cd on your win machine to do it - or you could download the source and build it on your raspbian. I first became aware of partimage several years ago when I wanted to upgrade the hard drive on a laptop. Copied out the image, partitioned the new drive and copied back - as I recall it can restore an image to a larger partition with no hassle.

I'm not aware of a tool in Stretch (I assume that is debian? - I'm not very up-do-date but anyway) - the following should do the same:

Create a file that uses the empty space on that disk:

,---- | dd if=/dev/zero of=file-on-the-disk.bin bs=1m `----

dd stops when the disk is full - the empty space is written with zeroes.

then delete the file and make your disk backup. dd backups are usually the whole disk, but when you zip it you should see the difference (depending on your otherwise empty space)

Make your Image-Backup with dd and then use "PiShrink"

You can also try rsync: which is a Raspbian package and will copy data to any other partitions and ignore cruft on the source:

- use a partitioning utility to set up partitions on the new SD-card (in a USB-SD card adapter or a USB-connected HDD

- use rsync to copy the partition contents across.

- boot off the new SD card.

You can also use any archiving system such as tar for the EXT4 partition and ZIP for the FAT partition. Don't use zip for the EXT4 partition because it will play merry hell with Linux permissions and file ownership.

Any of these will only copy the contents of directories and files, while ignoring anything that isn't part of a directory or file.

Before I take out my SD card to let dcfldd (an enhanced version of dd) copy an image that gets piped to 7z, I make this via ssh:

sudo ionice -c 3 fstrim -v /

This takes a while. But my 32 GB card's copy uses up 6 GB instead of 10 or so GB (packed).

B. Alabay