...The errors begin around when there is 37 MB saved on my PC and continue until about ... well, it doesn't stop... =p
I imagine it looked pretty bad
It's normal to encounter bad bytes on a flash card, in fact the manufacturer expects them. However, dd doesn't
I suggest that you try something other than dd.
Is this semi-normal (like bad pixels) and likely to have been there when I got it? Will the Z workaround the bad area and continue to function with just a bit less flash space?
Yes this entirely normal and is to be expected. And I think that the driver for the card does the error checking and the mapping of bad bytes (as opposed to being done in hardware).
Will installing another ROM (C860 or OZ) be risking making my Z unusable as a result?
Nope. Not because of that anyways. But be careful as to what you
write into these areas. That could easily make it a shiny new paperweight. I would be scared to death of trying to write back what I dd'ed out.
So if you are talking about writing what you dd'ed out back in, then I certainly wouldn't. But I like the intent of your idea, it would be nice to have a utility to make a mirror image of the Z so that you could try out a new ROM without having to rebuild the entire thing from scratch (anybody know of a utility that does this?).
On a side topic, am I even backing up the proper device (mtd0-3) or should I be looking elsewhere to get an entire backup?
I suppose that would get just about all of it. Anybody else know?
A little light reading:
http://www.linux-mtd.infradead.org/John
