Unable to backup NVME to image on SD card using DD command

[compent]

A few days ago I had an issue with a successfully running Armbian installation running from the NVME of my Orange Pi 5 that suddenly developed an issue with nothing being shown on my TV.

 

So after seemingly not being to identify the problem, I started again, wrote the image to an SD card and then moved the installation to the NVME drive using armbian-config utility.

 

So now that I have a set-up that works again, I want to instigate a more belt and braces approach and create an image of the NVME installation using GZIP to compress the image file and decided to use the DD option from terminal.

 

Having tried well over a hundred different combinations of commands, I am unable to get things to work.

 

I either get errors of Not a directory, No such file or directory or Is a directory

 

The output of lsblk is

 

NAME        MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
mtdblock0    31:0    0    16M  0 disk 
mmcblk1     179:0    0  59.5G  0 disk 
└─mmcblk1p1 179:1    0  59.5G  0 part 
zram0       252:0    0   3.9G  0 disk [SWAP]
zram1       252:1    0    50M  0 disk /var/log
zram2       252:2    0     0B  0 disk 
nvme0n1     259:0    0 238.5G  0 disk 
└─nvme0n1p1 259:1    0 238.5G  0 part /var/log.hdd

 

So in order to create the copy of the NVME installation, that is only taking up 13gb of the 238Gb total, to the root of a 64Gb SD card, completely empty and formatted to EXT4 via gparted, using the information above, can anybody see where I am going wrong.

 

 

A few typical examples of command structures that I have tried are:

 

sudo dd if=/dev/nvme0n1 of=/dev/mmcblk1/armbian.gz conv=sync bs=64K | gzip --stdout > bs=4M status=progress

 

dd if=/dev/nvme0n1 conv=sync bs=64K | gzip --stdout > of=/dev/mmcblk1/armbian.gz

 

dd if=/dev/nvme0n1p1 conv=sync bs=64K | gzip --stdout > of=/dev/mmcblk1p1/armbian.gz bs=4M status=progress

 

 

This is the general template that I initially followed from a website

 

dd if=/dev/SOURCE conv=sync bs=64K | gzip --stdout > /path/to/file.gz

 

I've researched the use of the DD command until I am cross eyed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[laibsch]

Are you trying to copy the rootfs of the system you are currently booted into?  That won't work.  You need to boot a separate installation, the filesystem you want to dd should not be mounted.

You didn't really say what went wrong, by the way.

[compent]

OK thanks.

 

I am just trying to take a working copy of the NVME installation and create a back-up image file, just as I do with Windows installations, for restore in case of emergency.

 

I had hoped that because I could transfer a live system from SD card to NVME, then I might be able to do something similar the other way.

 

As I said above, all I was getting from the various attempts were errors of either Not a directory, No such file or directory or Is a directory

 

But now that I know that it is not possible this way, I shall boot from a separate installation and hope that things work from there.

 

I am still concerned about the 3 errors that I was continually receiving and would like to get the DD syntax correct, so that I can see what I need to do.

 

[laibsch]

I'd say, boot from a different medium and then try the dd commands again (use pv for a nice progress bar) to see if you have the same errors again.