backing up with dd fails

[Alan]

> > I tried this yesterday with my new FC6 install. It from about 7:30pm until 
> > 7:00am and I saw a message on the screen, something like this:
> > 
> > Firmware error detected, ipw2200, restarting
> 
> This error is related to the wireless network. Maybe you should try to
> disable this while you copy the disk?

It may even be unrelated. If it is repeatable then that is interesting
obviously although even then the firmware may have restarted simply
because of PCI bus starvation which would not be unreasonable.