Hey guys, just found the perfect solution to all these problems with SD and it was right in front of me all the time... The answer is OS X Disk Utility - nothing to install, nothing to buy and best of all it is very fast and produces bullet proof results.
The only inconvenience is that to obtain perfect bootable clone you have to start the computer from installation CD and run it from there, but it is the price I am more than happy to pay
