Need good disk dump utility

[Rick Murphy]

Not mentioned so far is dd_rescue, 
http://www.garloff.de/kurt/linux/ddrescue/
It copies in large chunks until an error is seen, then backs off to 
smaller reads, attempting to get what it can.  You can restart a copy 
from a new point, which extends the current dump file to skip the area 
that hasn't been (or couldn't be) read. You can also read in reverse, 
backing up from the end of the media to the point of an error.

There's a gnu program that does the same things, ddrescue 
http://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/ddrescue.html. It seems to be 
slightly more automatic, but similar in operation to dd_rescue.
	-Rick