DD not working--SUCCESS!

[Ian Malone]

Karl Larsen wrote:
> Chris Jones wrote:
>> On Saturday 1 September 2007 4:12:02 pm Karl Larsen wrote:
>>  
>>> Les Mikesell wrote:
>>>    
>>>> Karl Larsen wrote:
>>>>      

>>>>> 1. The destination partition MUST be at least a byte larger than the
>>>>> source partition where the data is coming from. This is essential!
>>>>>         

>>>     
>>
>> Erm, what.
>> Please explain how the fact that you cannot squeeze a 40G partition 
>> into a 20G one, something I would have thought obvious, leads you to 
>> the conclusion that the destination has to be bigger than the source.
>> All this proves is 40 > 20 : hardly ground a breaking discovery...
>>
>> For the record the destination has to be THE SAME size or bigger. 
>> There is no requirement (I am aware of) that it must be at least a 
>> byte bigger....


>    I think this is a stupid discussion. To you Chris, "How do you make 
> sure the destination partition is EXACTLY equal in byte size to the 
> source partition?".
> 

As pointed out you define them this way.  However I think there are two
more important things to look at here.  First, why specify it must be at
least a byte larger when this is not the case.  Secondly this approach
(using dd) only really makes sense when cloning the partition.  This is
/why/ you specify it the same size, because for whatever reason you want
an exact copy of the partition.  Other methods involving copying are
often more time efficient and do not suffer such restrictions on the
partition sizes or inefficiencies should you copy to a slightly larger
partition. (Depending of course on what you're doing.  Fixing a broken
fs is example that has already been given of a good time to clone the
partition.)

-- 
imalone