Changing Compact Flash Memory Size used as boot hard drive

Factual Questions
1

I have a VIA EPIA-M series Mini-ITX Mainboard.

http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/embedded/LegacyProducts.jsp?productLine=1&id=81&tabs=1#Manual

This is running a Linux based firewall called Smoothwall.

http://www.smoothwall.org/

It has been running on a 1GB Compact Flash memory card as the hard drive for about 10 years. These eventually fail after many years and I replace them as necessary. I just received a 2GB CF card as a replacement. Thinking that the way they do wear leveling would give a longer lifetime.

I use EasyImageWin to create the CF card from an image on my hardrive. I get a warning that says “The selected image file does not match to the destination drive. If you continue, the drive may report wrong size or even may be unreadable!” This warning happens with the old 1GB cards (that work) and the new 2GB card. The new 2GB card will not boot.

Does anyone know why this warning comes up? As in, Why does an image smaller than the CF card have the potential to be unreadable?

2

Edit to add… It’s headless so I can’t see what’s going on.

3

The OS uses the size written in the first few block of the device, not the reported geometry from the device - which is fake anyway. So long as the device has more blocks than the image there is no problems

I’ve done this many times putting smaller images onto larger devices. When I get really keen I may even use a disk resize utility to add any spare space.

4

As I expected, it SHOULD work. I know enough linux to get into trouble. Any chance hooking up a monitor would provide any useful information? I’d just try it but it’s kinda PIA to do.