Stop kernel from reading the partition table

[tbart]

Hi there!

I have a bad HD here that seems to be pretty OK after the first few megs. ddrescue already copied 50 GBs off it and the data is usable.
The partition table area however is very defective and it only was luck that I managed to make ddrescue read as only two times the disk managed to read its partition table.

Now it only hangs at trying to read logical block 0.

Can I somehow stop the kernel (or is it userspace?) from reading the partition table?

PATA disk, USB case.

I just want /dev/sdc (I can also do that with mknod, don't need udev for that) and nothing more. I'll seek to the interesting parts with ddrescue and avoid the defective beginning of the disk.

Is it just udev I have to stop? How?
_________________
Microsoft is not the answer.
Microsoft is the question, and the answer is no.

[tbart]

OK, I hacked this in myself in fs/partitions/check.c

But something still wants to access logical block 0. Any clues how I can stop that?
_________________
Microsoft is not the answer.
Microsoft is the question, and the answer is no.