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Tutorials -> ODROID -> Tutorial 7

Tutorial 7: Capturing an image of your ODROID-C1+, 2, XU4, GO, Etc.'s SD Card

• Author: Brian A. Ree

  
  

  Sections

  - Tools Needed
  - Introduction and Tutorial Goals
  - Capturing an Image on OSX
  - Capturing an Image on Windows
  - Capturing an Image on Linux
  

  
  
  

  0: Tools Needed

  - A Mac, Windows, or Linux computer.
  - SD card to USB Converter x1 $9.99:     link
  - An SD or Micro SD card to take an image of.
  - Win32 Disk Imager     link
  - 7-Zip Compression Utility     link
  

  1: Introduction and Tutorial Goals

  SD cards sometimes fail and when they fail it is often with little to no warning, just poof, gone. So we want to show you how to make a backup image of your SD card so that you can clone it in case it fails. This comes in handy if you happen to be using an ODROID-GO, Monku Retro 1, 2, or Monku Retro 3 device. This tutorial will show you how to make an image of an SD card using a OSX, Windows, or Linux.

  2: Capturing an Image on OSX

  First thing you'll have to do is locate your Disk Utility application. Open Finder and go to the Applications section, scroll down to the Utilities folder and then locate the Disk Utility app. Double click it to open it. Mount the SD card you want to take an image of either using a converter, I have one that I use listed above, or by using a native SD card drive. In this case I'm creating an image of a micro SD card for my ODROID-GO and I'm using a micro SD to SD card converter and my native SD card drive on my Mac laptop.

  
  
  

  Locate your target drive, SD card, on the left hand side of the Disk Utility's UI. Right click on the entry and select the Image From [Drive Name] menu option.

  
  
  

  Fill out the options in the resulting popup dialog. The default options seem like they would work fine. Make sure to remember where you set the image save location. Click Save and let the process run. You'll have an image file ready in no time. Make sure you have at least as many GB of free space as the drive you're trying to take an image of or else the process will fail. You can right click the file and select Compress to create a compressed version of the SD card image if need be.

  
  
  

  2: Capturing an Image on Windows

  For Windows boxes I use Win32 Disk Imager. Mount the SD card on a Windows box by connecting it via a native SD card reader or with an adapter. I posted a link to the one I use above in the tools section.

  Simply locate the drive you want to take an image of. For OS boot SD cards like those used in your ODROID-C1+ or C2 find the drive mounted as boot. Next select the location you'd like to to use to store the output file. Make sure you have at least as many GB of free space as the drive you're trying to take an image of or else the process will fail.

  
  
  

  Once the process is complete you can right click on the image file created and select Send to -> Compressed Folder to create a compressed version of the image file. I also like to use 7-Zip on Windows for creating archives of image files.

  2: Capturing an Image on Linux

  For Linux boxes like your Monku Retro 1,2, or 3 I like to use fdisk and dd CLI tools. To create a new image of a connected SD card run the following commands.
  
  sudo fdisk -l
  
  
  This will print out a list of connected drives and their drive id. In this case we're looking for an entry like /dev/sdx. In the image below you can see at the bottom of the output the drive id is /dev/sda1. I'll also post the text here.
  
  odroid@odroid64:~$ sudo fdisk -l
  [sudo] password for odroid:
  Disk /dev/mmcblk0: 58.2 GiB, 62511906816 bytes, 122093568 sectors
  Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
  Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
  I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
  Disklabel type: dos
  Disk identifier: 0xd3630000
  
  Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
  /dev/mmcblk0p1 2048 264191 262144 128M c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
  /dev/mmcblk0p2 264192 122092544 121828353 58.1G 83 Linux
  
  
  Disk /dev/sda: 14.6 GiB, 15665725440 bytes, 30597120 sectors
  Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
  Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
  I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
  Disklabel type: dos
  Disk identifier: 0x7dc9ff37
  
  Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
  /dev/sda1 8192 30253055 30244864 14.4G c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
  

  
  
  

  Let's run the following commands and create a new disk image. Make sure you have enough free space to store the output file. Use the size of the SD card as an estimate and you can never go wrong.
  
  sudo dd if=/dev/sda1 of=~/copy_of_sd.img
  
  Let the process run. this can take a while depending on the side of the SD card and its speed. When the process completes you'll see a report with information about what was written to the image file. The image below depicts a completed image file creation process.

  
  
  

  Verify the file size using the file system browser and you're good to go.

  
  
  

  Now you have no excuse not to back up your SD cards!