[SOLVED] Need help with dd !!!

[blnl]

Partition backup image created as follows:

dd if=/dev/hda3 conv=sync,noerror bs=64K | gzip -c > nc6000_linux_system.img.gz

Trying to restore the partition from the image as follows:

gunzip -c nc6000_linux_system.img.gz | dd of=/dev/hda3 conv=sync,noerror bs=64K

The dd operation fails with the following message:

dd: writing '/dev/hda3': No space left on device
3673+348340 records in
352012+0 records out
23069491200 bytes (23 GB) copied, 713.275 s, 32.3 MB/s

Why is there no space left? I'm restoring the same partition, from which the image is made.
What am I doing wrong?
Can someone help me please? I do not understand if my partition image is faulty, or I do not know how to restore it.

[dk92123]

linuxforums.org/forum/misc/54070-dd-command.html

I'm not a dd expert but looks like someone here had a similar problem.

The mistake you made was giving gunzip the file name so it'll perform the unzip in situ. This means that you'll need enough space in your current directory for both the zipped and unzipped files! Try
Code:

gunzip <partition.image.gz | dd bs=1M of=/dev/hda6

[blnl]

Interesting observation.
Thanks!
I'll try it.

[blnl]

Recently, I found out that -c option in gunzip sends the data to std.out. That means the image is being unziped on the fly, no additional drive space is consumed (on the drive that holds the image).
In spite of the "No space left on device" message, the restore operation was successful and my system boots normally.

Still if someone has an explanation, I am interested to hear it.

[blnl]

On LinuxQuestions.org I got an explanation:

Originally Posted by AwesomeMachine
In the command line to restore, dd is dependent on gunzip feeding it image data. Because of the sync parameter, dd pads the last block with zeroes to make it a full block. So dd keeps going after the image.gz file is written. No space left on device is not an error. Many uses of dd require the device to run out of space. It's not a problem. But the sync conversion is helpful for the method of backup you are using (gzip).

The original thread that discusses dd usage can be found here: Learn The DD Command Revised