April 24th, 2013· dd_rescue 1.33 brings a new double-overwrite (random and zero) mode.
· More importantly, dd_rescue now supports long options and has a man page that properly documents all the options and modes.
February 11th, 2013· This version adds two new options: -x facilitates appending to an output file, and -Y OUTFILE (can be specified multiple times) allows the user to specify secondary output files which receive the same data (at the same position) as the primary output file.
February 4th, 2013· This version brings a few minor cleanups (messages) and one feature: it now has a mode where the output file/partition/disk is overwritten two (-3) or three (-4) times with random data and finally with zeros.
· This supports secure data destruction according to German data privacy standards from BSI.
January 28th, 2013· -p correctly copies access times, output to stdout works, and the progress info is always updated when exiting.
· This release fixes copying the last block with hardbs==softbs.
· Better option validation.
· Allows for 512 byte blocks with direct I/O now, and has better defaults for block sizes.
· Optimization for writing the same block again and again (-R).
· Can write random data (e.g. -z seedval or -Z /dev/urandom) using the libc or Eli Billauer's RC4 based PRNG.
· Writes can be avoided if the output file/device already contains identical contents (-W).
· Builds .deb binaries.
February 5th, 2012· Changes since the last published version (1.20) include additional warnings for overwriting existing files in sparse mode, documentation improvements, an FPE bugfix for reverse copy, really defaulting to -y 0 (not syncing except at the end), not considering EOF an error and displaying better error messages (errno was overwritten in one scenario), portability improvements, and fixes for the output of bad blocks.
September 8th, 2010· Version 1.21 issues warnings when writing in a sparse mode into existing files or to block devices.
August 26th, 2010· This version brings support for fallocate (to tell the filesystem how large the resulting target file will be, so it can avoid fragmentation better).
· It also enables a progress indicator when the input file size is not known (e.g. a pipe or /dev/zero) but the maximum transfer length has been set with -m.
August 21st, 2010· This version include some fixes (sparse writing, filling 0 when read errors occur) and some better error handling (consider ENOSPC fatal, don't repeat warnings for failed fsyncs).
· The program now defaults to -y0, meaning no fsyncs.
· Optionally, dd_rescue can now use the splice system call (on Linux) to do avoid copying of data in memory.
· The output of the program is now better, allowing the user to see better on what operation (read, write, fsync) warnings or errors occurred.
· Most importantly, there is a progress bar now, with a completion percentage and an ETA displayed.