Ripping FC5 DVD to iso file

[Ian Burrell]

Kenneth Porter <shiva <at> sewingwitch.com> writes:
> 
> Alas, it looks like I have a coaster. I'm seeing "bad sector" kernel 
> messages in /var/log/messages. I tried to tar the mounted DVD and start 
> seeing bad files in the RPMS directory.
> 
> This is a major reason I install/upgrade Fedora using an iso image on the 
> hard drive. I still don't trust DVD media not to go bad.
> 

You might try ddrescue (in the ddrescue package) which is dd with better error
recovery.  It will can try reading bad sectors multiple times to see if it can
get a good version although that is more usual for failing hard drives.

Also, it can write the bad blocks as zeros and read the rest of the files.  If
you can get a partial .iso, rsync and bittorrent can fill in the holes without
having to download the parts you already have.

 - Ian