From owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Sun Jan 29 19:03:23 2017 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@mailman.ysv.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8C0DACC72E7 for ; Sun, 29 Jan 2017 19:03:23 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from brandon.wandersee@gmail.com) Received: from mail-io0-f196.google.com (mail-io0-f196.google.com [209.85.223.196]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 (128/128 bits)) (Client CN "smtp.gmail.com", Issuer "Google Internet Authority G2" (verified OK)) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 6294B1D6B for ; Sun, 29 Jan 2017 19:03:22 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from brandon.wandersee@gmail.com) Received: by mail-io0-f196.google.com with SMTP id 101so12648749iom.0 for ; Sun, 29 Jan 2017 11:03:22 -0800 (PST) X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20161025; h=x-gm-message-state:references:user-agent:from:to:cc:subject :in-reply-to:date:message-id:mime-version; bh=PPzutXOiDMpSokSXUUqernsG3E93pMATic5MegYIPrY=; b=aaMGXmts1ueEO6ZQiPVViLrSbm3gILqCWt0jULucZ8lKR1Iqcf79Tp9ZQATDdimVYT 5R373xb5UsneJj4iZy4hi17WueRYxrASkCLOFxL2s4eqV9nKVbhy1xztqsVKrCOMzFMS fsJD03JyVmPgngQvdTzM0PQoBTZs23fqdSY8tgdF0e/HAVFfkBMlQufqFZjHwZ6QaWEK TA9PZ06YG4VIf+pKdvVvramNs1I3oq/eodEQ0FB9Ei1YXX6HGmtNzuChz07qmgH9L8Xh TCF1FIxbX3kAnW46i6G1RR9StSg7anZv3pIxagt49TjbyluSvcProSgHfQ9/cS6iNAH5 lOwA== X-Gm-Message-State: AIkVDXKmnRKt7UbT4lGsaCs9H5cDydsl6HaGIzN/EFbaP3fucX4vmBQkVVwnT/XW3syj8Q== X-Received: by 10.107.137.33 with SMTP id l33mr15350399iod.215.1485716143385; Sun, 29 Jan 2017 10:55:43 -0800 (PST) Received: from WorkBox.homestead.org ([184.97.226.147]) by smtp.gmail.com with ESMTPSA id q185sm5132996itc.22.2017.01.29.10.55.42 (version=TLS1_2 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 bits=128/128); Sun, 29 Jan 2017 10:55:42 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (WorkBox.homestead.org [local]) by WorkBox.homestead.org (OpenSMTPD) with ESMTPA id f97e621e; Sun, 29 Jan 2017 12:55:41 -0600 (CST) References: User-agent: mu4e 0.9.16; emacs 25.1.1 From: Brandon J. Wandersee To: David Christensen Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD 11.0-RELEASE-p7 i386 system drive imaging and migration In-reply-to: Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2017 12:55:41 -0600 Message-ID: <86bmupg0gi.fsf@WorkBox.homestead.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2017 19:03:23 -0000 David Christensen writes: > What is the proper way to clone a FreeBSD system image from one drive to > another? In my personal opinion, the "proper" way is to back up your data, create a fresh partition table and filesystems on the new disk, and restore the backup. Using `dd` to clone an entire disk byte-for-byte works, but it's the painfully slow, tedious, and potentially dangerous way of doing this. The native backup utilities---dump(8) and restore(8) for UFS, `zfs send` and `zfs receive` for ZFS---will copy the data from an existing filesystem and write to a new filesystem at speeds exponentially greater than anything you'll get from `dd`. However, I'm not sure that addresses the actual problem in this particular case. I can't say exactly what the error message you're getting means, but while it might stem from how you copied the system it might also imply a problem with the disk itself. Unrecoverable read errors, maybe. -- :: Brandon J. Wandersee :: brandon.wandersee@gmail.com :: -------------------------------------------------- :: 'The best design is as little design as possible.' :: --- Dieter Rams ----------------------------------