Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[labbe5]

ddrescue is not derived from dd. ddrescue uses an algorithm that copies data from failing hard drives if using ‘mapfiles’ or ‘logfiles’ only the needed blocks are read. Here is an example command.

ddrescue -d -r5 /dev/sdX test.img test.logfile

The -d is telling ddrescue to use the disk via direct access and to ignore the kernels cache.

-r5 tells it to try 5 times before giving up if your sure your drive is failing you may have to skip this option attempting ddrescue on a failing drive too many times may cause more trouble than it aims to solve.

/dev/sdX again replace the x for the drive your using ddrescue on with the help of lsblk if you wanted to use it on a specific partition you would make it /dev/sdX1 or /dev/sdX2 respectively.

Test.img – is the name of the file

test.logfile – in short always use a logfile it means you can start from where you left off if you need to or to retry some stubborn bad sectors on a HDD without this logfile you would have to start all over again.

This how-to is part of a website :
http://morpheusarch.co.uk/blog/2016/08/15/morpheusarch-linux-documentation/

[Sylvander]

I tried it and liked it.

Here's my thread made at the time [2011]:
Anyone know how to use ddrescue [NOT dd_rescue]?

[labbe5]

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/119823/ripping-dvd-in-debian-wheezy#119826

I use MakeMKV to rip DVD, and Handbrake to compress output files when needed, but there is another way to rip DVD using ddrescue.

If you don't care about the format, you can rip to an image of the DVD (as opposed to ripping to a video format, e.g. MKV, MP4, avi etc.).

For this I use GNU ddrescue -- it's available as gddrescue in Debian. Note that the binary is named ddrescue.

To rip, first install gddrescue and then use the following command:

ddrescue /dev/sr0 dvd_name.img dvd_name.log

The latter is the log file. If for some reason you need to halt the rip, having a log file enables you to start where you left off.

Using gddresue has the added benefit of the resulting image being as close as possible to the original. If you have two (or more) copies of the same DVD, but both are scratched, you may be able to make one perfect copy using gddrescue on both.

Supposedly, encrypted DVD can be ripped as well using ddrescue. See how with link above.

[tallboy]