[Bug-ddrescue] Reading past errors on a non-scsi drive

[James Bardin]

Hello,

This may be a feature request, or just advice is it's already possible.

I'm trying to read through a disk in which there are errors that cause 
the disk to wait indefinitely. (I've had to recover many disks in this 
state, so I'm surprised that I can't find a info on this)
When this happens on a scsi disc, the read times out, the controller 
dumps the memory, and we move on.
On other types of disks, we hang. I've tried reading both from the block 
device, and raw character devices.

My current solution is to use a usb adapter, and pull the connection 
when it stops reading, then start again from a different block. This is 
fine when there a few bad areas, but I'm looking for an automated 
solution for more serious recovery.

I'm not sure if this is even possible without additional features in the 
kernel. I've been following a related thread on lkml about a true forced 
unmount that would drop pending io:
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/linux/kernel/745783

Or, if someone knows a way to forcefully remove, and reinitialize a usb 
device via software, I could use that as a workaround for now.

Thanks
-jim