backup.md

Backup and restore

Remove the microSD

Remove the back cover of the e-reader and follow the safety measures if you haven't yet. Then carefully remove the microSD card and connect it to your computer.

Backup

Now backup all the partitions at once using dd.

dd if=/dev/<microsd> bs=4M conv=sync,noerror | xz > kobo-backup.img.xz

Note: you can find the block size (bs) of the device by running stat -fc %s /dev/<microsd>

Note: conv=sync,noerror tells dd that if it can't read a block due to a read error, then it should at least write something to its output of the correct length¹

Restore

To restore the backup, simply uncompress the image and write it to the microSD.

xz -dc kobo-backup.img.xz | sudo dd of=/dev/<microsd> bs=4M status=progress