Re: [Bug-ddrescue] bug/feature request: sparse file to block device

[Steven Noonan]

This is fantastic! Thanks for the pointer!

- Steven

On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 9:13 AM, Mark <address@hidden> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Mon, September 24, 2012 08:21, Steven Noonan wrote:
>> It seems that ddrescue doesn't like using -S with block device output
>> targets. My use case is copying a sparse file (QEMU raw disk image)
>> onto an empty physical volume. I'd like to avoid doing 'dd
>> if=sparsefile of=/dev/sdf' because zeros from the sparse file will be
>> written to the target.
>
> It isn't ddrescue, but ddpt should be able to do what you want. See
>   http://sg.danny.cz/sg/ddpt.html
>
> You'd use a command like this:
>   ddpt if=imagefile.bin of=/dev/sdd bs=512 bpt=128 oflag=sparse
>
> If you have an SSD, ddpt can also "trim" all-zero regions rather than just
> skip them. For that you'd do something like:
>   ddpt if=imagefile.bin of=/dev/sdd bs=512 bpt=128 oflag=pt,trim
>
>
> Regards,
> -- Mark
>
>