> ... [no swap turned on]
> # gzip -d < miniroot-14I.fs.gz | dd of=/dev/rsd0b bs=20b conv=sync
> # halt
> ok boot disk:b netbsd -s
> Boot device: ...[this is ok]
> Instruction Access Exception


I noticed this too a few weeks back. Please check the statistics
output that dd(1) prints; if there are any partial block reads or writes
then the output has probably been mangled by the `conv=sync' part.

I think dd mistreats input from a pipe.

-pk