Re: [Bug-ddrescue] GNU ddrescue 1.20 released

[Scott Dwyer]

Antonio,

I have just done some testing of this new version (working on modifying 
my patch for it) and would like to express my opinion about the new 
accounting change for errsize. While I do understand the idea behind 
only including bad sectors in the error reporting, when performing 
actual tests I found it makes ddrescue seem like it is missing some 
major feedback. There is now no way to tell what is going on, or how bad 
a drive may be without that error reporting. That really sucks! It 
leaves the user wondering what the hell is going on, and a recovery 
could run for hours, days, or longer without showing any errors! If only 
bad blocks are going to be reported as errors, then ddrescue needs to 
report the non-trimmed and non-scraped blocks as well so the user can 
tell what is happening. I personally consider this something major and 
would suggest that you change it back until the extra error reporting 
can be added. That is just my opinion, but I feel it is worth voicing 
strongly.

Thanks,

Scott

On 9/14/2015 7:35 AM, Antonio Diaz Diaz wrote:
> I am pleased to announce the release of GNU ddrescue 1.20.
>
> GNU ddrescue is a data recovery tool. It copies data from one file or 
> block device (hard disc, cdrom, etc) to another, trying to rescue the 
> good parts first in case of read errors.
>
> GNU Ddrescuelog is a tool that manipulates ddrescue mapfiles, shows 
> mapfile contents, converts mapfiles to/from other formats, compares 
> mapfiles, tests rescue status, and can delete a mapfile if the rescue 
> is done.
>
> The homepage is at http://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/ddrescue.html
>
> The sources can be downloaded from http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/ddrescue/ 
> http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/ddrescue/ or from your 
> favorite GNU mirror.
>
> The sha1sum is:
> 7e64aea5744a195094f11f9d24486853141a7d49  ddrescue-1.20.tar.lz
>
> This release is also GPG signed. You can download the signature by 
> appending ".sig" to the URL.
>
> Changes in version 1.20:
>
>   * "logfile" has been renamed to "mapfile" everywhere, even in long 
> option names. ("--domain-logfile" is now "--domain-mapfile", etc). The 
> format of the mapfile remains the same; only the name has changed.
>
>   * The short name of option "--synchronous" has been changed to "-y".
>
>   * The long name of option "-d" has been changed to "--idirect".
>
>   * The new option "-D, --odirect" has been added. This introduces a 
> subtle backward incompatibility because "-D" was the short name of 
> option "--synchronous".
>
>   * The new option "-J, --verify-on-error" has been added. It 
> verifies, after each read error, that the input device is still 
> returning consistent data.
>
>   * The new option "--max-read-rate" has been added.
>
>   * "direct disc access" now can copy arbitrary domains by reading 
> whole sectors and writing only the requested part.
>
>   * Accounting change; only bad_sector blocks are now included in 
> "errsize".
>
>   * The estimated remaining rescue time is now shown on the screen.
>
>   * Times are now shown in days, hours, minutes and seconds, instead 
> of as a fraction of the appropriate unit.
>
>   * Fill mode has been extended to write location data into each sector.
>
>   * An emergency save of the mapfile has been added. It can be 
> activated in case of ddrescue having trouble writing the mapfile.
>
>   * Device name is now shown with "--ask" or "-vv" on Haiku.
>
>   * Read-only mapfiles, like domain mapfiles or input mapfiles for 
> ddrescuelog, can now be read from standard input if a hyphen '-' is 
> used as mapfile name.
>
>   * Ddrescuelog can now show the status of more than one mapfile.
>
>   * "ddrescuelog --create-mapfile -" now writes the mapfile to 
> standard output.
>
>   * The new chapter "Optical media" has been added to the manual.
>
>   * The configure option "--enable-linux" has been renamed to 
> "--enable-non-posix".
>
>   * The targets "install-compress", "install-strip-compress", 
> "install-info-compress" and "install-man-compress" have been added to 
> the Makefile.
>
>
> Please send bug reports and suggestions to address@hidden
>
>
> Regards,
> Antonio Diaz, GNU ddrescue author and maintainer.
>
>
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