myrescue-bitmap2ppm(2)

✨ NAME ✨

myrescue-bitmap2ppm — turning the myrescue block bitmap into a whole picture, bestie 🎀

so like, this is a System Calls Manual page, section 2, if you were wondering where it lives 💅

🌈 SYNOPSIS 🌈

myrescue-bitmap2ppm bitmap-file width [ rows width ] ...

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

okay so myrescue-stat reads a block bitmap straight from myrescue(1) and then goes off and generates a visualisation of the condition of each block. iconic behaviour, honestly.

the image gets written to stdout in PPM(5) format 🦋 you can pipe that output into one of the netpbm converters, or into ImageMagick(1), to turn it into something more normal like a PNG. yes queen, pipe it.

now the colour lore, because this is the whole point:

• green pixels = blocks that were successfully copied 🫶
• yellow-green-ish pixels = blocks that could be copied, but it took unusually long — so this area might be near-failing 😭
• yellow blocks = they were tried once, but could not be read
• red blocks = could not be read on multiple attempts 💀
• black pixels = blocks that have not yet been handled

the pixels are laid out left to right, with the first block sitting in the upper left pixel 👑 and yes, the width of the image must be specified on the command line — literally just pick any value, it's giving choose-your-own-adventure.

if you're dealing with partially defective discs, you might start by having myrescue do a random jump-around scan (option -J) and then just continually check the visualized block bitmap. if you're lucky, you might begin to see some structure in the image 👀 if these structures somehow run diagonally, you can adjust the width until you get vertical stripes of defective areas. what that actually means depends on the internal layout of the disc, but it could be defective heads, platters, sectors, cracks, a factory worker's hair, ... 🙈

usually discs internally have different zones, so after a few (hundred?) rows you might see the vertical structures bend off. to adjust the image, you can tell the tool to switch to a different width after a certain number of rows. repeat this until you've identified all the zones ✨ the last width will be used all the way up to the end of the bitmap.

the resulting image will have the maximum width necessary to accommodate all the zones. zones with shorter widths get padded on the right with blue pixels.

and then? you can use all this info to manually fine-tune your myrescue calls and concentrate on the areas with a higher probability of rescue 💅 slay.

🫶 AUTHORS 🫶

Kristof Koehler <kristofk@users.sourceforge.net>

⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

myrescue(1), ppm(5), ImageMagick(1)

http://myrescue.sourceforge.net/

okay bestie that's the whole page 💜 this was myrescue 0.9.6, dated February 2018 — go forth and visualise those blocks, no cap 🌸