Here's strace with open, lseek, write, and close: 

[pid    32] open("/dev/hda3", O_WRONLY) = 56

[pid    32] lseek(56, 2097152, SEEK_SET) = 2097152

[pid    32] lseek(56, 0, SEEK_CUR)      = 2097152

[pid    32] lseek(56, 2128896, SEEK_SET) = 2128896

[pid    32] lseek(56, 0, SEEK_CUR)      = 2128896

[pid    32] lseek(56, 0, SEEK_CUR)      = 2128896

[pid    32] write(56, "<\0Y\3\0\0\0\0\0\0\16\0^\227O@\241\337\254\37", 512) = 512

[pid    32] close(56)                   = 0

.
Excessive nulls deleted from the write() this time around for brevity.
_________________________
- Tony C
my empeg stuff