The linear reading strategy

The linear reading strategy is recommended for:

• creating images from undamaged media, e.g. to generate the error correction file
• scanning the medium for reading speed and read errors

• extracting data from damaged media

Optical media are organized into sectors which are continously numbered beginning with zero. Each sector contains 2048 bytes of data. The linear reading strategy reads the medium from the start (sector 0) until the end (last sector). The reading speed is shown graphically to provide information about the medium quality:

Weak CD

Number of sectors to skip after a read error. Reading attempts for defective sectors are slow and may wear out the drive mechanics under unfavourable conditions. A series of read errors, spread over a continous sector range, is more common than single spot defects. Therefore a configuration option exists so that a certain number of sectors will be skipped after the occurance of a read error. The skipped sectors are assumed to be defective without further reading attempts. Some guide lines for selecting the number of skipped sectors are:

• Skipping a large number of sectors (e.g. 1024) gives a quick overview of the degree of damage, but will usually not collect enough data for repairing the medium image.

• Smaller values like 16, 32 or 64 are a good trade-off: The processing time will be considerably shortened, but still enough data for repairing the image will be collected.

Limiting the reading range. Reading can be limited to a given range of sectors in the "Image" preferences tab. This comes in handy during multiple read attempts of damaged media.

The speed curve. Most drives will slow down while reading medium areas which are in bad condition:

• Drops in the reading speed can be a warning for an imminent medium failure.
• However some drives will read with full speed until the bitter end. With such drives media deterioration may not show up in the reading curve until actual read errors occur.

The reading curve is most accurate when using the "Scan" function. During the "Read" operation the read data will be written to the hard drive at the same time, which may cause irregularities in the reading curve depending on the operating system and hardware used.

Read errors. Read errors cause red markings in the spiral or respective messages at the command line. This means that the medium could not be read at these places during the current reading pass:

• The medium is most likely defective.
• The image should be repaired as soon as possible and then be transferred to a new medium.