How do I troubleshoot this dd error when copying image to SD card?

Question

I'm trying to follow the instructions in this answer on how to copy the Ubuntu image to an SD card for the Raspberry Pi.

I get the following error using the imagewriter application:

Trying to unmount /dev/mmcblk0p1...
/dev/mmcblk0p1 successfully unmounted
Executing: dd if=/media/ewilson/KINGSTON/2012-08-08-wheezy-armel.img of=/dev/mmcblk0
The dd process ended with an error!

I have no idea how to troubleshoot this. Any ideas?

Answer 1

are you root, or using sudo? you need to be, to write to a block device.

Answer 2

It seems it was an issue related to not having administrative privileges. I did the same thing with sudo imagewriter and it worked.