Arch Linux

Gamer

Member

Registered: 2012-07-23

Posts: 17

Installing Archlinux on an SD card - I/O errors

Since I have got a spare 8GB Kingston SD card, I thought I could try installing Archlinux on it, but it doesn't seem to be an easy task.

With the help of cfdisk I created three partitions ( boot, root, home ) and formatted them as ext2, but in the middle ( half of packages installed ) of first pacstrap it failed with millions of I/O errors ( nothing specific, just a bunch of sector lines ).

Tried formatting root as ext3 and ext4, but it didn't change anything ( even worse, pacstrap isn't even starting the installation process ).

What am I missing ?

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Real men don't use backups, they post their stuff on a public ftp server and let the rest of the world make copies.
- Linus Torvalds

Alber

Member

From: Spain - España

Registered: 2011-11-11

Posts: 227

Re: Installing Archlinux on an SD card - I/O errors

I have no idea.
But you could use badblocks to see if your USB is ok.

Last edited by Alber (2012-07-25 13:00:37)

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Because not all of us are native English speakers, try no to use slang or abbreviations, thank you.

Gamer

Member

Registered: 2012-07-23

Posts: 17

Re: Installing Archlinux on an SD card - I/O errors

I have no idea.
But you could use badblocks to see if your USB is ok.

I do not have access to my Linux PC right now, but here's the output from chkdsk ( Windows ):

The type of the file system is FAT32.
Volume KINGSTON SD created 7/25/2012 3:27 PM
Volume Serial Number is E4C4-94D2
Windows is verifying files and folders...
File and folder verification is complete.
Windows is verifying free space...
Free space verification is complete.
Windows has checked the file system and found no problems.
    7 758 492 KB total disk space.
        6 272 KB in bad sectors.
    7 752 216 KB are available.

        4 096 bytes in each allocation unit.
    1 939 623 total allocation units on disk.
    1 938 054 allocation units available on disk.

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Real men don't use backups, they post their stuff on a public ftp server and let the rest of the world make copies.
- Linus Torvalds

starfry

Member

From: Surrey, UK

Registered: 2010-08-18

Posts: 230

Re: Installing Archlinux on an SD card - I/O errors

Hello, I just saw your post. I'm having a similar issue copying large amounts of files (an entire filesystem) onto an SD card. The script I am using works fine if I write to an image file which I can then dd onto my sd card with no problems. It's like the sd card can't keep up with the stream and things go wrong. I get the same problem using either "cp -a" or  "tar" to write an entire filesystem onto the sd card. Still looking into it but thought I'd mention it...

Alber

Member

From: Spain - España

Registered: 2011-11-11

Posts: 227

Re: Installing Archlinux on an SD card - I/O errors

@Gamer
Looks like you have 6272 KB in bad sectors.
Command badblocks do a save and a read to tell you what sectors are bad. Sometimes blocks are repaired by just that write and read.
When format the media use mke2fs (ext2) with option -c. You can read badblocks manpage and mke2fs, they aren't long.
@Starfry
Are you using dd on a sd with filesystem or without it? The bigest file in ext2 and FAT32 is 4GiB. But you can do a dd in a raw SD without filesystem.

Last edited by Alber (2012-08-22 11:54:32)

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Because not all of us are native English speakers, try no to use slang or abbreviations, thank you.