nowerror conversion for dd

Hello!

When You clear a defective hard disk for privacy (dd if=/dev/zero
of=...) or in other similar appplications, it might be really convenient
to have the opposite of the "noerror" conversion available.

Unfortunately, this option does not exist.

I once made a quick patch, but it did not implement a correct skip/seek
for the output file with all the necessary error handling (I noticed
right now :-( ).

So this scheme might be what we need:

try_to_write_a_block()
if (write_error)
  if (nowerror_conversion) {
    if (!try_to_seek_behind_written_blocksize())
      give_up_and_cry()
  } else give_up_as_usual()

What do You think about such a complement for the "noerror" conversion
flag?
   

-- 
Mit freundlichen Gruessen / Yours sincerely

Marian Eichholz