SD Card Backup

[sardo007]

Hi everyone... Is there any way to backup the Micro SD card once I have installed Win10 IoT just in case something ill happens and I have to start from scratch again?

Thanks a lot!!

[MarkHaysHarris777]

Absolutely. Its essentially the 'reverse' of what you do to make an SD card image from the download repository; and the directions are going to vary based on what tools you have available. I use the mac method, and the gnu/linux method because I have not used Windows since 1998. You may need to use the windows method.

I use gnu/linux and the dd command. The dd command is extremely dangerous, and requires great care and keeping ones wits about them at all times (you can blow your entire hard drive with it!

It basically looks like this:

sudo dd bs=4M if=/dev/mmcblk0 of=/Downloads/raspi_SD_card.img

What it does is copy from the input file (SD card device) (mounted in your PC) to the output file (image file on your PC) in 4M blocks .

This takes a long time (maybe ten minutes for an 8 gig card).

The SD card should be unmounted, so if your system mounts it automatically you will need to umount it as root using sudo.

The dd command will create an 8gig image file which can be written back out in the event of corruption.

PS notes: you will want to verify the accuracy of the backup. you can use md5sum or shasum to verify the image / or you can write the image back out to another SD card and compare the cards. I always verify my backups, but I've never had one that didn't work yet!

If you need to use the windows tools the idea is the same, just the commands and toolset is different. Read the procedure on the Raspi download site for details.

PPS ... here is the windows info:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentati ... windows.md


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[sardo007]

THANK YOU!!! I've used dd in my Mac for Raspbian images, but I wasn't sure it would work for Win10 IoT... I'll give it a try tonight and post my results... You're a real life saver

Thanks a lot!!

[MarkHaysHarris777]

THANK YOU!!! I've used dd in my Mac for Raspbian images, but I wasn't sure it would work for Win10 IoT... I'll give it a try tonight and post my results... You're a real life saver

Thanks a lot!!

You bet! ... and by the way, it has nothing to do with the content of the SD card... its just bits being sent in the order it finds them to a file... dd could care less what the bits are. When they come back on a restore theoretically the new SD card will (from a binary perspective) look identical to the backed-up card.

[markrad_msft]

On a Windows 10 host I have successfully tested the Win32 Disk Imager. This is the utility that the Raspberry Pi folk suggest one use to write their img file to the SD card. I was able to back up an existing SD card and write it to a new SD card (same size obviously). The new card booted with Win 10 IoT just fine.
A link to this utility was included in a earlier post by MarkHaysHarris777.

[sardo007]

Hi... I already tested the dd approach in the Mac and it works like charm. Having a backup is a relief... I don't trust micro SD cards... they fail too often. Do you know whether the F2FS would be available for Win10 IoT? It would be really nice

[markrad_msft]

I'm not aware of any technical reason that the F2FS file system couldn't be used but I haven't heard anything from the product group that would indicate they intend providing this. Perhaps Samsung will release Windows (IoT) support at some point.