I'm trying to duplicate the root system onto a 512mb internal mmc. I used the command:

# /tar-temp/bin/tar cf - -C /floppy . | /tar-temp/bin/tar xvf - -C /opt

from this site: http://www.wahlau.org/fun_with_n800_...

It ran for about 30 minutes until I noticed it had stopped with this error message: http://picasaweb...

My questions are:

1. would it be better to reflash by N800 and start over?
2. How far along did I get?
3. Is there a way to fix and continue from this point on?

The implausibly old time stamp is to be expected and nothing to concern yourself about. It's hard to tell if you have any other errors as you appear to have typed over some of the output before it had finished.

I reflashed my n800 and refollowed all the directions per the fun_with_n800 site. I still get an error message as soon as it tries to copy from the ./tar-temp/sbin/rmt directory.

The error states: "/tar-temp/bin/tar: error exit delayed from previous errors
/var/cache/apt/archives # <cursor>

It looks to me like either its finished copying and that's how it shows it's done, or maybe the version of tar that I downloaded and installed (the website says something about needing a different version of tar "since the original tar from busybox has path limited to 100 chars so not everything is copied."

I'm going to go ahead and finish doing the steps listed and see if I can continue on.

Later on...
Booted from mmc2 card (I set up the entire 512mb as an ext2 partition) and edited the /mnt/initfs/bootmenu.sh file using midnight commander to point to the 1st and only partition on the mmc2 card. I rebooted and it looked ok at first until I noticed some weirdness such as: text at top of home screen saying home.me instead of Home and the applications all had weird names. Then the device spontaneously rebooted. I went ahead and booted from flash.

I reflashed the device and restored my previous settings. Looks like I'll have to reinstall my apps (maemo mapper, etc).

Would it be possible to download an image of a partition that someone else had built and install it directly to the mmc2 card? One with all the basic apps and repositories- that would be pretty neat if possible.

You could try running (as root) "apt-get clean" to clear out your apt archive, and then try running the tar again to see if succeeds without any problems. You probably have the correct version of tar by now, it certainly looks like you do... the busybox version of tar isn't very good and not to be used for this task.

I get the "Implausibly old time stamp" error, too. It's causing (the correct version of) tar to cease to continue.

Who can tell me what to change (see the second line of this thread) so tar will ignore the "implausibility". I looked at...
tar --help
...and nothing jumped out at me. Maybe add...
2>/dev/null
...but at the end or near the |

Background...
3.2006.49-2 (looks like the OP is N800 FWIW)
Some of the old (1/1/1970) folders are mnt, proc, root, sys

Thanks to anybody who can solve this!

If your only "error" is the implausible date stamp you have nothing to worry about - it's only a warning.

Thanks, Milhouse.

When I did the tar cloning, the only "error" I saw was "Implausibly old time stamp" I think. So I completed the Boot-from-MMC tutorial's steps. On reboot I chose the default boot from mmc2.

The symptom I have is that there's no font or something. Everything looks right by what I see the OS presenting me, but the only words are ones that are part of a PNG or JPG or something. So, for example, when I click on the App Launcher it seems to have the proper number of choices and even the icons look right. But there aren't any words. Yikes.

Background...
[boot from flash]
Control Panel/Memory/Device sez...
Storage memory in use: 13.0 MB
I wish I knew the shell command to give me something similar to the following
[boot from mmc2]
USB-connected to VMware Player, Volume Properties sez...
Name: 296.3 MB Volume
Contents: 10410 items, totalling 90.6 MB
(some contents unreadable)
Free space: 161.6 MB

Are you sure you used GNU tar and not the busybox tar?

I think the problem with the busybox tar is that it doesn't copy the fonts (or something like that). If you're really stuck, follow the instructions I posted the other day.

LOL, I'm pretty sure. I had navigated to the folder it was in and started typing by just going tar... Then I remembered we aren't in Kansas anymore so I typed tar[enter] and it replied busybox. So I typed ./tar[enter] and sure enough it looked different, so I proceeded. I'm sure I coulda screwed up to the right of the pipe or something.

I think I can try your tutorial next even though I'm 2006 OS. It looks nice -- I think someone was saying you sold out to the mindless. The thing is, this kind of learning is all in the first hours of having the 770 (back) cuz I don't wanna start in with all the tweaks and software adds I plan until I know I can backup everything.

Thank you, Milhouse! I'll report back.

I've updated my cloning instructions so that they should work for OS 2006, OS 2007HE and OS 2007. Post in the cloning thread if you have any problems.