Creating clone of a HDD including boot partition

[Warren Block]

On Thu, 16 Dec 2010, bsd wrote:

> I have tried to use the compressed approach using smthg like:
>
> # mount /dev/ad0s1a /mnt
> # cd /mnt
> # dd if=/dev/zero of=zerofile bs=1M
>
>
> I have a lot of errors on standerr output such as :
>
> g_vfs_done() : da0s1a [WRITE(offset=58978680256, length=131072)]error = 5
>
> Up to a point where It has finaly freezed my running FBSD 8.1.
>
>
> I don't think I have reached the end of the file? ??

No, it looks like either the drive or the USB adapter is having hardware 
problems.  Using an external power supply for the drive may help, or 
maybe just dual USB connections (if it has them). Or connect through a 
powered hub.