Re: Issue writing image to disk via dd

[Mark Kane <mark@mkproductions.org>]

On Wed, Apr 13, 2011, at 10:54:46 +1000, Scott Ferguson wrote:
> What commands did you use to create the original image?
> 
> If image.img was created by simply:-
> dd if=/dev/sda of=/image.img
> then bs is unnecessary.

I did not create the image directly using dd but rather used a script
which makes a bootable disk image for this purpose of remotely
reinstalling the OS. Running file(1) on the image from Debian shows
this if it helps:

image.img: x86 boot sector; partition 4: ID=0xa5, active, starthead
0, startsector 0, 50000 sectors, code offset 0x3c, BSD disklabel

I tried dd with and without bs, however there is no difference. Just to
clarify why I am so confused about this: 

In Debian etch or squeeze:

1) dd if=image.img of=/dev/sda bs=1M
2) Reboot
3) New boot loader is seen and starts to boot OS, but the the OS hangs
or crashes.

In the current Arch release:

1) dd if=image.img of=/dev/sda bs=1M
2) Reboot
3) New boot loader is seen, new operating system boots properly.

Thanks a lot for the reply,

-Mark