[Bug-ddrescue] Need a replacement for System Rescue CD as an environment for running ddrescue on Windows PC

[Shahrukh Merchant]

Hello, I have successfully used System Rescue CD as my go-to environment 
for running ddrescue. Unfortunately, System Rescue CD is no longer being 
maintained (ddrescue there is stuck at 1.21r1), and I really would like 
to use the latest version of ddrescue (among other reasons, one of my 
requested changes to ddrescue was kindly incorporated by Antonio in 1.23).

Is there another easy-to-create (e.g., ISO image directly available) 
live Unix CD that has the basics I need to run ddrescue and keeps 
ddrescue better updated? My workflow only uses:
        lsblk (to determine device IDs)
        ntfs-3g (to mount Windows partition/drive)
        ddrescue
(and of course basic Unix commands like ls, cd, etc.). I do not use the 
other "rescue" features of System Rescue CD, not in this workflow at any 
rate.

Any suggestions for an alternative? I'm quite comfortable around Unix as 
a user, but not really as a developer, so while I know I could create my 
own Unix environment, download the latest ddrescue source and compile it 
myself, it would be a struggle--no doubt an educational one that I might 
do one day, but one that at this point in time exceeds my pain threshold 
just to use the new features of ddrescue!

Per Scott Dwyer's suggestion when I first posted on this issue in May 
2018, I did try to contact the author of SRC with my request, but (a) 
the forum no longer accepts new members, (b) there was no reply to the 
personal email I sent to the author, and (c) the forum postings which 
were light even back then, seem to have stopped completely, with some of 
the more recent posts also noting the lack of 
attention/interest/manpower for keeping SystemRescueCD active. Looking 
at the SRC page on SourceForge, there still seem to be occasionally 
releases, but I guess only some packages are updated, not including 
ddrescue :-( ).

Thanks!

Shahrukh