trying to read from dying disk

[John J. Lee]

jdh2358 at gmail.com writes:

> I have a python file that is trying to read raw data from a raw
> partition on a dying dist, eg
[...]
> On some blocks, the read succeeds, on others it fails and an IOError is
> thrown, and on others it appears to hang indefinitely and will not
> respond to any attempt to kill it with 'kill -9 PID', etc.
> 
> Is there anyway to do a timeout read on this kind of file, or even to
> kill the process once it hangs?
> 
> linux kernel 2.6.10
> python 2.4.1

This sounds like a linux kernel question much more than a Python one.
Try a linux programmers' list?


John