Copy bootable linux compact flash to SD card

Question

I have a bootable Linux compact flash card and want to copy it to an SD card. What would be the easiest way to do this?

digitxp · Answer 1 · 2011-08-24 02:08:10Z

Boot up a copy of Linux that isn't your CF Linux. Open a terminal emulator.
Run fdisk -l and find your CF card and SD card (they may have identifiable sizes or labels). I'll assume that they're /dev/sde and /dev/sdf.
Run dd if=/dev/sde of=/dev/sdf.

And don't forget to backup your hard drive. Every time someone wipes their hard drive from a mistype, another fairie dies.

If the extreme power of dd is too much to handle, you may find CloneZilla a bit more manageable.

Not fairies but bogons die - once the ones left can be overpowered by cluons, enlightenment has been achieved.

mlp · Answer 2 · 2011-08-24 02:09:04Z

up vote 0 down vote

dd if=/dev/CF of=/dev/SD

But seriously, to be able to meaningfully answer your question we need to know more about

answered Aug 24 '11 at 2:09

mlp
1032

	Both the CompactFlash and SD card are 4GBs. The CompactFlash appears to have 3.5GB partition that I can see in my Ubuntu box. The bootloader is Ubuntu. I tried a dd on these and it doesn't seem to copy the part with the bootable system files as it won't boot when I use the SD card. I guess a dd won't copy the partition I would have partition the SD card and then run the dd? – user208861 Aug 24 '11 at 21:04
	@user208861, edit your question to add those details, and also the commands you've tried and what appeared to happen. – mlp Aug 31 '11 at 4:16
	`dd` does what it's told, so if you specify `if=` and `of=` as the whole-device files for their corresponding devices, then it will copy the bootcode. See digitxp's answer. – mlp Aug 31 '11 at 4:20

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