Need good disk dump utility

[Scott Stevens]

On Sat, 23 Apr 2005 16:11:11 -0700 (PDT)
Vintage Computer Festival <vcf at siconic.com> wrote:

> 
> I'm currently using Anadisk to dump disks into image files.  The
> problem is, Anadisk, like 22disk, is retarded.  If it hits an error it
> skips the sector but does not put a blank sector in the image file. 
> You have the option of placing a sector header before each sector, but
> for manipulating disk images, this is a piss poor way to mark missing
> sectors.  Anadisk also has the annoying habit of ignoring the start
> and finish cylinders and merrily proceeds to read the entire disk,
> relegating the need to ask you what cylinders you want dumped
> superfluous.
> 
> Is there anything in Linux that will dump a disk image and put blank
> space where bad sectors are?  It's not certain if dd does this.
> 
> I'm sick of the crap programming of others.  Must I write *EVERYTHING*
> myself?
> 

Well, the cool thing about the free Unices (and Linux) is that you can
dig into the source code for dd and find out.  And if it doesn't put
blank space where errors occur, you can modify it to do so.  Perhaps
with a command-line switch option, if one doesn't already exist.

> I'm sick of the crap programming of others.  Must I write *EVERYTHING*
> myself?

Naw, just the bit that will scratch your particular itch.  And if you
make changes to dd and submit your changes back, nobody else will have
to rewrite it either.