Hi folks, Could you please look at the text below and attachements and comment please? Best regards, Wojtek --------------------------------- CentOS Wiki tip proposal: Copy/verify files from CD/DVD quickly If you want to copy a lot of files from CD or DVD, or verify md5 or sha1 of a large number of files, keep in mind that CD/DVD drive seeks are expensive and if are avoided as much as possible, the task could be completed faster (and quieter). Method 1. Copy the image to hard disk and loopback mount it. a) copying image assuming device is /dev/dvd and disk is either a single-session CD or CD-RW single session recorded in DAO mode, or DVD+RW recorded with growisofs $ dd if=/dev/dvd bs=2k of=hard_disk_directory/imagename.iso It the media is a single-session CD or CD-RW recorded in TAO mode, there are unreadable sectors at end of session, you need to determine size: $ isosize -x /dev/dvd results are like this: sector count: 346739, sector size: 2048 note sector count and read image using dd: $ dd if=/dev/dvd bs=2k count=sector_count_value of=destination_image_file_path Then, become root (e.g. using su), and make mount point if needed, mount the image: # mkdir -p /mnt/loop/myimage # mount -o ro,loop destination_image_file_path /mnt/loop/myimage Now you can use files in /mnt/loop/myimage, CD/DVD media is not needed. NOTES on loopback method: - needs root for lopback mount - will work only for single session media (or first session of multi-session media) - no seeks when reading DV/DVD media, but entire media is being read, justified only if you need to read most of the files, or a number of file multiple times Method 2 Access files in physical media order You could observe, that (most of the time) inode numbers of files in ISO9660 filesystem mounted on Linux are increasing as the start sector numer of file increase (within a single session). So to minimize seek operations access files in increasing inode value order. Please use attached scripts flist_by_inum.pl - sort file list by file inode number flist_by_inum.pl - sort md5/sha1 list by file inode number Mount the CD/DVD media, let us assume the mount point is /mnt/dvd If you want to copy some or all regular files to destination_directory, run cd /mnt/dvd find . -type f -print0 | flist_by_inum.pl -0 | cpio -p0md destination_directory You can of course give find utility some files/directories instead of ., as well as any criteria. If you are sure no file name contain white-space, etc, you can remove -0 and 0: find . -type f -print | flist_by_inum.pl | cpio -pmd destination_directory If you want to verify SHA1 fo the files, do the following: cd /mnt/dvd cat sha1sum_file | mdlist_by_inum.pl | sha1sum -wc > ~/verify.rslt 2>~/verify.msg NOTES: - no root privileges needed - should work for multi-session discs (although with some seeks) - only files needed are accessed - method also useful for accessing files on loopback-mounted images located on DVD -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: flist_by_inum.pl Type: application/x-perl Size: 2407 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-devel/attachments/20070328/8ad812a2/attachment-0012.pl> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: mdlist_by_inum.pl Type: application/x-perl Size: 2603 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-devel/attachments/20070328/8ad812a2/attachment-0013.pl>