[Gumstix-users] Cloning a bootable microSD card

[Joseph H. <jos...@gm...>]

I've attempted to follow the directions posted here:
http://wiki.gumstix.org/index.php?title=MicroSd

If you happen to have two microSD slots so both cards are simultaneously
> available, you can do a direct copy:
> dd if=/dev/sourcecard of=/dev/destcard bs=1M
>

However, the destination card would not boot after this process. This is the
output received at during the boot process:

[    1.049194] Waiting for root device /dev/mmcblk0p2...
> [    1.666107] mmc0: host does not support reading read-only switch.
> assuming write-enable.
> [    1.674316] mmc0: new high speed SDHC card at address b368
> [    1.680358] mmcblk0: mmc0:b368 SD    14.9 GiB
> [    1.685302]  mmcblk0: p1 p2
> [    1.706176] List of all partitions:
> [    1.709716] 1f00             512 mtdblock0 (driver?)
> [    1.714813] 1f01            1792 mtdblock1 (driver?)
> [    1.719818] 1f02             256 mtdblock2 (driver?)
> [    1.724853] 1f03            4096 mtdblock3 (driver?)
> [    1.729888] 1f04          255488 mtdblock4 (driver?)
> [    1.734893] b300        15693824 mmcblk0 driver: mmcblk
> [    1.740203]   b301           40131 mmcblk0p1
> [    1.744537]   b302        15647310 mmcblk0p2
> [    1.748870] No filesystem could mount root, tried:  ext3
> [    1.754241] Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on
> unknown-block(179,2)
>

For reference, this is the output seen from the source card at that same
stage:

[    1.049163] Waiting for root device /dev/mmcblk0p2...
> [    1.712921] mmc0: host does not support reading read-only switch.
> assuming wr
> ite-enable.
> [    1.721130] mmc0: new high speed SDHC card at address b368
> [    1.727172] mmcblk0: mmc0:b368 SD    14.9 GiB
> [    1.732116]  mmcblk0: p1 p2
> [    1.819061] kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
> [    1.827789] EXT3-fs (mmcblk0p2): using internal journal
> [    1.833129] EXT3-fs (mmcblk0p2): mounted filesystem with writeback data
> mode
> [    1.840332] VFS: Mounted root (ext3 filesystem) on device 179:2.
> [    1.848815] devtmpfs: mounted
> [    1.851867] Freeing init memory: 148K
> INIT: version 2.86 booting
>

It would appear to me that something went wrong with the partition table. Is
that correct? And any ideas why this happened or how to resolve it?

(FYI, I've since manually made the destination card bootable and copied the
files over, because I really needed it. But I can try the procedure out
again on a third card, if needed.)

- Joseph Hickman