Re: [Bug-ddrescue] Long delays on bad parts of disk

[Antonio Diaz Diaz]

Hello David.

David Morrison wrote:
> 1. Why does ddrescue seem to lock up for extended periods trying to read 
> a small part of the disk when it is supposed to be doing a quick 
> recovery of the good parts of the disk?

Ddrescue can't know where the good parts of the disc are until it tries. 
The bad news are that the drive can block for a long time with every 
read request. There is nothing ddrescue can do about this. As you said, 
even if you kill ddrescue the drive still won't respond.


> 2. Is there a file or debug mode that says what it is doing at any given 
> time? (The log file seems to give an end summary of what has happened, 
> rather than an indication of what ddrescue is doing at any given time.)

Try the --verbose option. If ddrescue does not refresh the screen nor 
respond to Ctrl-C it is because the drive is blocked. Give it some time 
to finish the read request.

BTW, what version of ddrescue are you running? Version 1.6 is far better 
than the previous ones skipping error areas, and also reads backward 
automatically.


Regards,
Antonio.