Clone any Armbian emmc|microSD with dd using Linux

[rin]

I can not reiterate enough just how easy it is to "clone" your modified emmc, or microSD card OS, ... into an image file that you can easily restore with (balena)Ethcher afterwards, and all withiin Linux.

 

1:/ you'll need a USB-card-reader-adapter.

2:/ no matter how your USB-reader card reader sees your emmc, microSD card, ..., it'll most likely be mounted on a /dev/sda1 partition.

3:/ sudo dd bs=4M if=/dev/sda of=~/tmp/armbian_odroidc4_11_01_2025.img
(you don't dd the partition, you dd the drive).

4:/ (optionally) sudo xz -v armbian_odroidc4_11_01_2025.img  
(this will take some time).

 

...and that's it, ... and you know the rest.

Edited January 12 by rin
spacing

[Meestor_X]

Very cool. I didn't realize it could be that easy. Great (but potentially slow) for making backups.

Here's the "tricky parts" that I'm still trying to figure out...

- cloning a larger drive that only has part of it used to a smaller drive that has room for the used part.

- changing the UUID/boot info so that you can clone a µSD to the eMMC and still have it boot from either one.

Edited January 20 by Meestor_X

[MaxT]

"tricky parts".

There is a topic on the forum re script to back up and shrink partition https://forum.armbian.com/index.php?/topic/29427-shrink-backup---a-tool-for-backing-up-sbc

[Meestor_X]

That tool is great for backing up, but not doing the UUID/boot change I need. I have to see if I can find some documentation on how to copy and change the boot info as staring at the source code of armbian-install (where this is solved) is making my eyes hurt. 😉

Edited January 21 by Meestor_X

[Meestor_X]

Can I not just dd a downloaded armbian image file directly to the emmc? i.e. put the image file in a folder on the µSD card or on an external flash drive and dd it to the emmc?

I tried that but it doesn't seem to work. I don't end up with a bootable emmc.

 

-EDIT-

NM. Stupid user error. I didn't decompress the image file before copying. Works fine once I do that.

Edited Monday at 05:24 PM by Meestor_X