Changelog - Atola Insight Forensic

Changelog

Atola Insight Forensic 5.5

Release date: April 4, 2024
Blog announcement

New Features

System-wide support for iSCSI devices.
CHAP discovery and login credentials are available for optional use.

Imaging:

NVMe drives, for DiskSense 2 unit only:

Multi-launch menu. Support of quick launch of all operations for image files.

Automatic checkup:

Better detection of vendor specific SMART attributes of different SSD models such as:

Disk Editor:

Artifact Finder. Improved performance of Search when 50M+ artifacts are found.

Compare. Last selected parameters are stored now.

UI enhancements:

Bugfixes

Imaging:

Automatic Checkup:

Artifact Finder. The results didn't include IP addresses that are not delimited by spaces.

Failed to open E01 files created by UFS Explorer.

Unable to identify USB Seagate One Touch drives.

Incorrect 0B capacity of an NVMe drive connected via Orico RTL 9210 adapter.

UI would freeze for 2 minutes after a loss of network connection when an image file was opened in a network folder.

The bottom menu items in the sidebar didn't fit when the system font size was 150% and the screen resolution wasn't higher than 1920 x 1080.

The Sentinel Error 7 message was still possible, preventing connection to the DiskSense unit.


Atola Insight Forensic 5.4.1

Release date: October 5, 2023

Bugfixes


Atola Insight Forensic 5.4

Release date: September 11, 2023
Blog announcement

New Features

Fully revamped Disk Editor:

Imaging:

Imaging, Automatic Checkup, File Recovery. Added support for:

Automatic Checkup. New validation checks for:

Artifact Finder:

File Recovery. Optimized memory use for XFS file system.

System-wide improvement of event logs in all long-running processes. Improved user experience when scrolling through the log as new records are added.

Detect all devices action added to the first dialog you see after Insight is launched.

Hotkeys added for Detect All and Multi-launch actions in the top menu.

DiskSense 2 unit only:

Bugfixes

Imaging:

Automatic Checkup. Incorrect current measurement for 18+ TB Seagate Exos drives.

Artifact Finder. Hex viewer could freeze during the running Artifact finder process with a large number of artifacts (over 1 million).

Locate sectors. UI fixes for Sector ranges field and progress page texts.

Compare. Error when starting an operation with USB drive and an image file having size that is not divisible by 512.

Removed a redundant error message when refreshing the home screen with an unidentified USB drive.

Occasional error ‘An item with the same key has already been added’ when importing.

Fixed speed value precision when it exceeds 1GB/s.

DiskSense 2 unit only:



Atola Insight Forensic 5.3

Release date: February 9, 2023
Blog announcement

New Features

Imaging:

Multi-launch menu. Support of quick launch for these operations:

New menu point: Detect all devices. It powers all attached drives up and identifies them.

Fill or Erase. New wiping methods for NVMe drives based on NVMe 1.4 specification:

Artifact Finder. New cryptocurrency artifacts types:

Automatic checkup:

AMA (Accessible Max Address) - a new operation in Device Utilities.

DiskSense 2 unit only. New source type: E01 image file on source drive.


Bugfixes

Specific drive support:

Imaging:

File system analysis:

Case management:

Endless reoccurring ”Hasp error 7” when there are no DiskSense units found on the network.

Inability to open image file with enabled read-only attribute.

EXT operation LED was not blinking during running operation.

Source device selection window. A few cases when source devices were not correctly powering off when one closes the window.

DiskSense 2 unit only:


Atola Insight Forensic 5.2.1

Release date: June 23, 2022

Bugfixes


Atola Insight Forensic 5.2

Release date: May 26, 2022
Blog announcement

New Features

Multi-launch of Fill or Erase and SSD Trim operations. It makes wiping of all drives possible in a few clicks.

Imaging:

Automatic checkup:

Head support for WDC Digital Caviar family

Support of parsing of NTFS partitions with cluster size ≥ 128K

FAT partition validation improvement

Support of MS SQL Server 2019


Bugfixes

Imaging. Rare possible error when comparing source drive SMART tables before and after image acquisition

Automatic checkup. Error during head check of an old 40 MB drive

Locate sectors

File recovery:

Comparing. Rare mismatch issue when comparing 4K-sector source device with 2+ other targets

NTFS partition created by Xbox S could not be recognized

APFS containers without volumes were missing in UI

Rare case when exFAT partition could not be parsed

Selection of image file on source drive (IFoS) was not working for USB, SAS, IDE and extension ports since the 5.0 software update

UI fixes for extremely long file paths and names

It was impossible to move Insight work folder if it was assigned to a root partition folder (D:\, for instance)

Work folder transfer issues occurred for a case associated with image file on target device (IFoT)

Home page, SAS drives. Last LBA field value was larger by one sector than expected.

Application crash happened after opening a missing attached file of case

DiskSense 2 unit only. Some SSD models could not be identified on SATA ports after power cycling the unit


Atola Insight Forensic 5.1.1

Release date: December 23, 2021
Blog announcement

Bugfixes

DiskSense 2 unit only:

Saving report To PDF/HTML could omit statistic fields like Sectors calculated in Chinese/Japanese languages.

Diagnostics. "Current channel is not AHCIChannel" exception in the Diagnostic report appearing for some SAS drive models.

Possible error when connecting to DiskSense unit with expired subscription.

"Unable to load DLL zlib1.dll" message during software installation

Chinese/Japanese languages. Fixed around dozen of minor issues in texts.


Atola Insight Forensic 5.1

Release date: October 5, 2021
Blog announcement

New Features

Locate Sectors, a new operation that finds a file by a specific sector it contains

XFS support in Imaging, File Recovery, Automatic Checkup

Insight Forensic became a 64-bit application removing the 4 GB memory limit in use 

Imaging:

Automatic checkup. NVMe drives support (DiskSense 2 unit only).

Work folder change moves all internal case folders and correspondingly updates MS SQL database.

Case management:

Disk Editor:

  • Ability to locate every sector (see Locate Sectors feature for more detail). 
  • Data template enhancements. Backward link navigation with new arrow buttons + GPT parsing 

Tooltips for all SATA registers in the status bar


Bugfixes

Rare FAT32 parsing issue in File Recovery and Imaging

Memory leak noticeable after a long-lasting use of Atola Insight

Imaging:

  • It was impossible to launch imaging to an E01 file when a source device had a serial number longer than 50 characters
  • Incorrect Imaging completed message in the log when "After 1500 consecutive errors - terminate imaging" rule was applied. The message now is Imaging terminated
  • Unchecked "Fill unreadable sectors" option had no impact on pre-hash calculation
  • Possible incorrect speed statistics during Macbook Air imaging into two targets
  • Create new imaging session could hang the application up when the source device could not be identified

Automatic checkup. Invalid "The motor does not consume proper current on spin up. The motor may be stuck, or the circuit board is malfunctioning." diagnosis for SSDs with non-working PCB.

Case management. Case number could not be assigned for devices, whose model name or serial contain slash '/' character.

File recovery:

  • Several issues when the process of recovering files could freeze
  • FAT32. Non-deleted filter was not hiding deleted folders
DiskSense 2 unit only:
  • SATA source 2 was not identifiable when an active imaging session was running to a USB target
  • Target port duplicates could be opened for the same port
  • SAS extension was not always waiting for SAS drive readiness when it was taking too long
  • Current measurement subsystem could stop working when performing multiple Automatic checkups and opening Oscilloscope windows
  • Automatic checkup for IDE was failing the first time after DiskSense 2 unit boot

Atola Insight Forensic 5.0

Release date: July 5, 2021
Blog announcement

This software update includes all features and changes from 4.16 version.

New Features

Imaging:

  • 3 parallel imaging sessions!
  • Native NVMe drive support via M.2 extension module

ETH2 port works in DHCP mode

Current measurement and short circuit detection for all SATA ports

IP display support

Bugfixes

An occasional out of memory error when recovering files from E01 compressed image or restoring E01 compressed image to a drive


Atola Insight Forensic 4.17

Release date: January 12, 2021
Blog announcement

New Features

AFF4 image file support

New imaging option: Calculate entropy. It enables data randomness analysis in the course of imaging.

Link to the new imaging Cheat sheet added to a few screens.

If SATA target is limited via HPA at the start of imaging, a corresponding log message is added

Changed parameters of a new image file are saved and applied during the following imaging


Bugfixes

Blue screen on Windows 10 October update during Atola Insight installation process

Imaging. Disabled read-look ahead option was not working

Minor UI bugfixes


Atola Insight Forensic 4.16

Release date: May 5, 2020
Blog announcement

New Features

Support of SAS drives with non-standard sector sizes: 520, 524, 528, 4080 bytes, etc

Imaging:

  • Creation of E01 segmented files (E01, E02, etc) supported
  • Head support for some of Toshiba HD models

Automatic checkup. Improved algorithm of degraded heads detection.

SSD Trim. New mode added - Only sectors without data


Bugfixes

Imaging:

  • Imaging could not be paused during E01 file growing its size which is caused by a forward jump
  • Removed the hasty head map detection attempt when opening imaging start page
  • Image files created on target drive had an invalid Created date
  • Minor UI fixes in Image File options dialog

Automatic checkup:

  • Removed a small check based upon obsolete ATA command
  • Minor issue with BitLockerGUID detection
  • Rare case when head speed graph labels might be missing


Atola Insight Forensic 4.15.1

Release date: January 6, 2020

Bugfix

  • Fixed possible out of memory error when imaging a 5TB+ source drive into an E01 file

Atola Insight Forensic 4.15

Release date: December 13, 2019
Blog announcement

New Features

Imaging to a file on a target drive:

  • Create encrypted password-protected VeraCrypt volume on a target drive to store images
  • Save image report in the target folder option supported for image files on target drives

Imaging:

  • Support of damaged USB flash sticks in read-only mode
  • A new format for Save image report in the target folder option - Text (Simplified)

Improved support of 4Kn drives.

Identification and detection of locked WD Smartware drives.

SSD Trim became a non-blocking operation: multitasking is available after SSD Trim is started.

DiskSense information window shows MAC address of the active Ethernet card.


Bugfixes

  • SMART. Fixed incorrect Power on Time for Samsung IDE drives
  • Attempt to open E01 file froze the software if the file was involved with a different task
  • Issue with changing IP from Dynamic to Static
  • Removed 20-second connection delay when switching between DiskSense units

Atola Insight Forensic 4.13.3

Release date: October 10, 2019

Bugfixes

  • Rare accidental IP address release for PC network card
  • DiskSense hard reset button was bringing the unit to dynamic IP address mode instead of static one

Atola Insight Forensic 4.13.2

Release date: September 11, 2019

New Features

  • Revamped Chinese translations

Bugfixes

  • Possible Insight crash during connection attempt to DiskSense unit when PC is a pseudo-network device
  • PC device was unavailable for selection as a target device

Atola Insight Forensic 4.13.1

Release date: July 12, 2019

Bugfix

  • Possible Insight crash during connection attempt to the DiskSense unit when PC has more than one network adapter

Atola Insight Forensic 4.13

Release date: July 3, 2019
Blog announcement

New Features

New device type:

  • NVMe drive support (via NVMe to USB adapter)

Connectivity with DiskSense hardware unit:

  • Revamped connection window to improve work in networks with multiple DiskSense units
  • Dynamic IP. Units can now receive an IP address from a network router
  • Changeable hostnames of DiskSense units
  • DiskSense unit blinks with front panel's LED indicators when selected in the connection window

SMART:

  • New Power cycles and Power on hours values indices in the readable format above SMART table
  • Added many vendor-specific attribute names making SMART table more informative

Case management:

  • E01 image details are added to the imaging report
  • If source case data is specified, Insight automatically fills target E01 file details with it

Enable source device check option. When the option is disabled, source device check before imaging start is replaced with a question in a message box.


Bugfixes

  • UnsupportedOperationException error when attempting to start selective head imaging with some models of Toshiba drives
  • Several errors when ‘Sector list from file’ selected as What to Image option
  • Formatting of WD USB Smartware drives as Image File on Target container didn’t work
  • SMART temperature graph missing after the case is exported and then imported
  • 2 articles were missing in the offline manual (F1 key in the app)

Atola Insight Forensic 4.12

Release date: February 28, 2019
Blog announcement

New Features

New source type:

  • Image file on source device

Imaging:

  • New way to select what to image via sector list files (.csv, .lst)
  • Suggestion to disable damaged/degraded heads when starting the first imaging session
  • BitLocker volume GUID added to the imaging log
  • Automatic exclusion of hidden Smartware area for WD USB drives
  • Image file on Target. Automatic exFAT partition creation with performance-optimized parameters
  • Support of Read SMART before/after imaging for USB drives

Automatic Checkup:

  • Imaging speed estimation for good drives
  • Hidden Smartware area detection for WD USB drives
  • Media surface speeds for outer, middle, inner LBA ranges
  • Disk temperature graph with its usage timespans
  • BitLocker volume detection

Fill or Erase, Compare:

  • Improved support of 4Kn drives when LBA pattern selected

Case management:

  • Better logging of actions with attached files.


Bugfixes

  • Intel DC S4500 did not identify and could not be imaged
  • HGST HUH728080ALN600 8ТB was shown as 1TB drive
  • Issues in head detection algorithm for Toshiba MG* and MQ* drive models
  • Automatic Checkup. Issues during PCB check of WDC WD5000AAKS and ST500LM021-1KJ152 models
  • Automatic Checkup. Fixed a few issues with head graph drawing
  • Current Oscilloscope adapted for large resolutions (4K and alike)
  • Multiple Chinese/Japanese translation issues

Atola Insight Forensic 4.11

Release date: August 14, 2018
Blog announcement

New Features

  • APFS support in Imaging, File Recovery, Automatic Checkup
  • File Recovery. Decryption of APFS volumes with known password or recovery key
  • Artifact Finder - new function for faster artifact search in devices and images
  • Imaging. New setting "Save report in the target folder"
  • Imaging. Start page shows Hash Type/Method when imaging settings are collapsed
  • Compare. Selecting target devices to compare data on them
  • Preferences: 'Enable source device checks' option to improve damaged drive support
  • Improvements in Chinese translation

Bugfixes

  • SAS drives. Support of 4K-sized physical sectors
  • Fixed error when opening E01 files created by Encase, X-Ways, FTK
  • Automatic Checkup. Removed incorrect error message for partitions larger than 8TB
  • Automatic Checkup. Some partitions might be missing in the report (only for custom-selected checks)
  • Case Management. Incorrect log link in a case report when user clicks it

Atola Insight Forensic 4.10

Release date: December 5, 2017
Blog announcement

New Features

  • Imaging. Search of forensic artifacts during image acquisition. Supported artifact types:
    • GPS coordinates
    • Phone numbers
    • Emails
    • URLs
    • IP addresses
    • MAC addresses
    • Credit card numbers
    • Custom keywords (loaded from a file)
    • Custom regular expressions (loaded from a file)
  • Imaging. New raw image file extensions: .001, .raw, .dd
  • Imaging. Automatic split file creation mode: .001, .002, .003, etc
  • New offline manual. 20+ new case-based articles.
  • E01 image file home page shows internal E01 file hashes
  • USB device home page shows Product ID and Vendor ID
  • Preferences: Added language switch between English, Japanese and Chinese

Bugfixes

  • Imaging: FTK Imager could not open E01 file created by Atola Insight
  • SMART: Marking with yellow color for attributes 5, 197, 198 was missing when Value was lower than Threshold

Atola Insight Forensic 4.9

Release date: August 3, 2017
Blog announcement

New Features

  • Imaging from MacBooks via new Thunderbolt extension module
  • Improved damaged SAS drive support during Imaging, Hashing and Comparing
  • Imaging: Improved segmented hash calculation for damaged drives
  • Imaging: New "Split all sessions to separate targets" link to resume imaging session if one of its targets is missing
  • Case Management: Ability to add serial numbers for MacBooks
  • Added Multitasking link to the top port panel

Bugfixes

  • Imaging: Error when creating imaging session to image file on target (IFoT) from File Recovery
  • Imaging: Post-comparing stage with IFoT target occasionally resulting in rare read errors
  • Imaging: Custom map manager issue. Rare scenario when some sectors of an NTFS partition are planned for imaging but are missing
  • Scripting: Script compilation failure due to the line - Print " "
  • Minor UI fixes

Atola Insight Forensic 4.8

Release date: February 28, 2017
Blog announcement

New Features

  • Password/firmware recovery. Added support of new drive families:
    • Hitachi HTxxxxxxxA9E6xx. The model is used in Sony PlayStation PS4 Pro gaming console
    • Hitachi HTxxxxxxxA9E3xx
    • Hitachi HCxxxxxxxA7A3xx
  • Imaging: Highlighting changes of SMART table attributes after imaging
  • Imaging: Improved BitLocker encrypted volume detection
  • Imaging: Added Tag field for custom file signatures
  • Automatic checkup: More resilient head stack analysis for damaged drives
  • SMART: More vendor-specific attributes supported for WD and Hitachi drives
  • "Power down source device upon completion" setting for long-running operations
  • Hashing: Consolidation of segmented hashes
  • Improved automatic reconnection of the DiskSense unit upon connection loss
  • Updated guide on connecting different types of Seagate drives to serial port

Bugfixes

  • File recovery: Problem with the recovery of large files (> 1 GB)
  • File recovery: File map scaling for large screen resolutions (Retina, 4K, etc)
  • File recovery: Missing First bytes search filter
  • Imaging: Rare issue with incorrect statistics
  • Imaging: "Next head" button malfunctioning during pass transition
  • Imaging: Clicking Pause when imaging to E01 was not working in rare cases
  • Imaging: Custom map manager issue. "Occupied sectors" + "Sectors without data" was not always equal to "All sectors" (NTFS)
  • Media scan: Issues in the log for small ranges and backward method
  • Possible invalid state of registers for IDE drives in Slave mode
  • It was impossible to open "Image File Options" when long-running operation was reading corresponding image file
  • Secure erase: Negative progress value in rare cases
  • Fixed icon scaling for large screen resolutions (Retina, 4K, etc) in many windows
  • Write from file: Unhandled error when selected image file is not found
  • 26 translation issues in Chinese and Japanese software versions
  • Minor UI fixes

Atola Insight Forensic 4.7

Release date: November 30, 2016
Blog announcement

New Features

  • Segmented hashing
    • Support for damaged evidence drives: segmented hashes calculation during multipass imaging
    • Calculation of linear and segmented hashes together
    • New "Verify segmented hashes" function
  • Imaging: BitLocker encrypted volume is automatically logged if encountered
  • Imaging: Added select head support for Toshiba MG drive families
  • Password recovery: Added support for SAMSUNG HD502IJ drives
  • Automatic checkup: Enhanced stability against severely damaged drives
  • Automatic checkup: Improved look and feel of the resulting report block with diagnosis
  • SMART reading and analysis are supported for USB drives. See the screenshot .
  • SMART: More vendor-specific attributes supported for SanDisk, Crucial, Intel SSDs

Bugfixes

  • Resolved a possible memory leak issue in DiskSense unit firmware
  • Automatic checkup: Fixed visual graph scaling for large screen resolutions (Retina, 4K, etc)
  • Imaging: Solved map graph scaling problems for large screen resolutions
  • Imaging: Head map was not correctly built on Seagate 4TB hard drive models
  • Imaging: Hard drives with more than 10 heads had no colors for some head intervals
  • Imaging: Fixed problem with map graph coloring for fragmented imaging maps
  • Media scan: Small ranges below 2048 sectors could have been taken inaccurately
  • Media scan: Fixed issues with backward and fast scans
  • Case management: ID sector report had missing characters in ASCII text column
  • UI fixes for large screen resolutions

Atola Insight Forensic 4.6

Release date: August 30, 2016

New Features

  • Scripting
    • 50+ script commands
    • 16 AtolaScript samples
    • Custom ATA commands: Ata, AtaIn, AtaOut
    • Extremely fast Find commands to search everywhere including unallocated space: Find, FindHEX, FindWords
    • Simultaneous execution of different scripts on many SATA, USB, SAS, IDE devices
  • Password recovery: Added support for Hitachi HTS72.....A7E6
  • Fill / erase: New wiping method - Random
  • Automatic checkup: It is available for all Target SATA ports now
  • Imaging: Resume and Back to sessions actions added
  • Imaging: Custom map manager usability improvements
  • File recovery: Supported hard and symbol links on HFS+/HFSX and ext2/3/4 partitions
  • Case management: Improved user experience for report printing
  • Generate bad sectors: One can specify sector intervals. Example: 0-100, 200, 20000-20003
  • Repeated power off button click instantly disables device power even if it was spinning down

Bugfixes

  • Imaging: Preset export/import did not include 'Pattern for unreadable sectors'
  • File recovery: Fixed a performance bottleneck happening when many files had already been recovered
  • File recovery: Fixed a bug when recovering selected files was not working to a remote network folder
  • Case reports: Fixed a problem with table indentions
  • Case reports: Logs might not fit into a page during export to RTF file
  • Fixed several issues of DiskSense unit IP address selection
  • Fixed few cases when Target port was not automatically added after selection from Recent Imaging Targets list
  • Minor UI fixes

Atola Insight Forensic 4.5

Release date: May 17, 2016

New Features

Imaging

  • Performance increase by 25% for good drives. Max linear imaging speed reaches 500 MB/s and more
  • Performance increase by 30% for non-linear imaging of all sectors with data
  • Imaging engine will clear password and HPA on-the-fly after power cycle if they were temporarily removed until power cycle
  • Imaging to compressed E01 file: 80% performance increase reaching speeds above 50 MB/s
  • Imaging progress bar now included in the resulting case report
  • Found partitions are added into imaging log when 'All sectors with data/metadata' is selected
  • "Add new session" link for faster start of another imaging session with different settings
  • New custom media map manager for better user experience
  • Added setting "Stop hashing on first error" to enable having a correct hash calculated for all sectors preceding the first read error on an evidence drive
  • Added setting "Read SMART before and after imaging"

Other

  • Improved resistance against heavily damaged drives to enable start imaging process anyway
  • Calculate hash: Performance increase by 10%
  • Password Recovery: Old Seagate UX drives supported
  • SMART: Improved recognition of vendor-specific attribute names (for SSDs in particular)
  • Preferences: Added new option "Power down SATA target device when operation finished"
  • Preferences: Added new option "Enable Target HEX viewer during Imaging"
  • Better Ethernet unit reconnection upon connection loss
  • Many smaller improvements

Bugfixes

Imaging

  • Imaging with hashes: Fixed incorrect 60ms read timeout on the pass
  • SAS imaging: Invalid timeout processing for damaged SAS drives
  • Fixed rare out of memory error that might happen for s severely damaged source drive
  • Rarely possible incorrect hash value when imaging was manually stopped during bad sector reading
  • Solved problems with on-the-fly imaging settings change while reading bad sector area
  • Pre-hash, post-hash, compare imaging settings were suddenly cleared after 'I want to image' change
  • Automatic power cycle was not performing spin-up for PUIS-active drives
  • Automatic power cycles were not running for IDE drives having PIO mode selected
  • It was impossible to pause imaging during automatic power cycle
  • Resizing window during imaging would slow down the whole process

Other

  • Fill or Erase: SATA Target Port 2 might return write errors on all wiping attempts
  • New HGST Deskstar NAS 6TB drives might not identify as SATA source
  • Password Recovery: Seagate Momentus 5400.3 drive family might not be unlocked in rare cases
  • Firmware Recovery: Fixed problem with reading of large firmware modules
  • Fixed issue with NET 4.6 framework installation
  • Fixed bugs with native 4K-sector USB device support
  • Fixed minor issues in Chinese and Japanese versions

Atola Insight Forensic 4.4

Release date: November 30, 2015

New Features

  • New Extension modules released (ask our sales)
    • SAS drive support
    • M.2 SATA/PCIe SSD support
    • 10 Gbit Ethernet. Improves imaging to file and file recovery speed up to 4 times
  • Imaging to E01 file: Pause/Resume operations added
  • Imaging to E01 file: 300% speed increase for compressed E01 files
  • Imaging: Improved head-selection algorithms
  • Calculate hash: 20% speed increase
  • File recovery: Comprehensive white/black hash list support
  • File recovery: Added search option for finding existing files - File set
  • File recovery: Automatic hash calculation was optimized
  • File recovery: HFS, ext, exFAT, FAT support for file sectors/clusters exported by Create File List function
  • Compare: 25% speed increase (SATA drives only)
  • Better USB device identification procedure
  • Improved MS SQL database error handling
  • Improved sizing of UI elements on large resolutions (Retina and higher)
  • Many smaller UI improvements

Bugfixes

  • Imaging: Head map was not correctly built on certain Seagate hard drive models (ST2000VM002)
  • Imaging: All sectors with metadata option. Fixed issue when HFS+ journal was not included
  • File recovery: Fixed rare cases when folder contents were not completely read
  • File recovery: Resolved performance issues of hash calculation
  • File recovery: First File Recovery opening had 1-2 second delay
  • File recovery: NTFS hard links might be shown as one file
  • File recovery: Fixed erroneous file list double-sorting
  • File recovery: Fixed Backspace key navigation problem
  • E01 files: Fixed warnings shown in third-party forensic tools for E01 files created by Atola Insight
  • Case management: File signatures could not be found after case import
  • Media scan: Enormously large speeds were shown on certain SSD models
  • Many other smaller fixes and improvements

Atola Insight Forensic 4.3.1

Release date: July 29, 2015

Bugfixes

  • Password recovery: Fixed rare crashes for IDE drives (WD, Hitachi, Samsung)
  • Apple SSD extension: F2 shortcut was not working for extension port source device
  • Media scan: Fixed a crash for USB target
  • File recovery: Copied column was mistakenly calculating for small files having media map unloaded
  • File recovery: Fixed an issue with hash calculation for NTFS soft link files
  • Imaging: Custom signatures could be missing in the list while opening it via View Report link
  • Fixed a bug hindering port creation for files with the same names
  • Type of Image File on Target could not be changed in a certain cases
  • Other smaller fixes

Atola Insight Forensic 4.3

Release date: June 29, 2015

New Features

  • Native Apple SSD support (2013-current Mac models) via a new PCIe adapter (ask our sales)
  • Imaging: E01 format support
  • File Recovery: File hash calculation in background
  • File Recovery: File hash export
  • Added support for drives in PUIS mode
  • Imaging: Select head imaging on Toshiba: MK, MQ, DT drive families
  • Imaging: software will now show the speed of each drive involved in imaging, allows to locate bottlenecks
  • Password recovery: Added support for Hitachi A9A3, CLA3, A9E6
  • Password recovery: Better support for older Samsung drives (for example HM160HI)
  • File recovery: better search (new options: find by signature, size, attributes, or by hash)
  • File recovery: deleted file recovery on HFS partitions
  • File recovery: support for hard and soft links on NTFS partitions
  • Case management: import/export of all cases at once
  • Case management: many small improvements in reports
  • Automatic Checkup: all parts can now be executed separately
  • Automatic Checkup: better filesystem checkup
  • Automatic Checkup: many improvements in head diagnosis
  • Firmware Recovery: Support for Hitachi models: A9A3, CLA3, A7E6, A9E6
  • Firmware Recovery: Support for Toshiba DT
  • Activation: it is now possible to activate Insight by code (without file transfers)
  • Database: new database selection window
  • DiskSense: it is now possible to change IP via Insight > Modify DiskSense Unit IP menu
  • Help: added list of all keyboard shortcuts, available under Help > Keyboard Shortcuts menu
  • Added support for native 4K-sector USB devices (for example iPod)
  • Many smaller UI and speed improvements

Bugfixes

  • Some hard drive models were not properly identified
  • File Recovery: Fixed Out of memory errors
  • File Recovery: Fixed a crash when working with some HFS+ partitions
  • File Recovery: Fixed a few issues when working with Samsung drives
  • Imaging was sometimes stopping sporadically for no apparent reason (rare)
  • File Recovery: Fixed a bug when XFS and JFS filesystems were detected as ext2 (should be Unknown for now)
  • Case Management now supports serial numbers longer than 20 characters
  • Case Management: A few fixes in export functions
  • Many other smaller fixes and improvements.

Atola Insight Forensic 4.2

Release date: January 29, 2015

New Features

  • Imaging: Image files can now be created on exFat-formatted Target hard drives
  • Imaging: speed improvements: https://blog.atola.com/benchmark-of-the-upcoming-atola-insight-forensic-4-2
  • Imaging: Compressed data transfers - Imaging onto host PC (image file on the PC) will be up to 100% faster
  • Imaging: Metadata-only imaging for ext2/ext3/ext4 partitions
  • Imaging: It is now possible to import and export presets
  • Imaging: can now calculate two hashes simultaneously (for example sha1 and md5 at the same time)
  • File recovery: speed improvements up to 3 times on ext4 partitions
  • File recovery: support for filters and many UI improvements
  • File recovery: create file lists feature can now export list of all clusters and sectors belonging to each file
  • Disk selection: Source/target media rescan is much faster now
  • Case Management: Notes as well as csv files can now be printed out.
  • Case Management: Added navigation between reports (back/forward)
  • Firmware: Added support for NVRM read/write via Hitachi adapter
  • Chinese version of user's manual is now included with the software
  • Added support for MS SQL Server 2014

Bugfixes

  • Imaging: JPEG and few other signatures were missing from default signature lists
  • Imaging: "CopyBuffer allocation timeout..." error message when browsing Found Signatures
  • Imaging: Improvements io handling of sparse files on network shares
  • Case management: out of memory errors when printing large images
  • Case management: it was impossible to open attached csv files
  • Firmware: It was impossible to import module map (Samsung)
  • Media recovery: did not properly handle USB drives
  • Many other bugfixes and improvements

Atola Insight Forensic 4.1.1

Release date: October 09, 2014

Bugfix: Some cases when hash value becomes invalid after Pause/Resume actions during Imaging.

Atola Insight Forensic 4.1

Release date: October 07, 2014

New Features

  • File recovery: it is now possible to create an imaging session that would include sectors of selected files
  • Imaging: new Metadata-only imaging mode allows copying of absolutely minimum amount of data for file browsing to work, this allows for imaging of specific files
  • Imaging: Settings can now be saved into custom presets
  • File Recovery: 500% speed increase when working with NTFS partitions
  • File Recovery: Deleted file recovery on NTFS partitions
  • File Recovery: Filter files by status (All Files, Fully Imaged, Partially Imaged)
  • File Recovery: Search now supports regular expressions, added new presets (documents, pictures, video etc)
  • File Recovery: 20% speed increase when generating file lists
  • Imaging, Disk Editor: when viewing sectors, known metadata will be automatically parsed into a human-readable form
  • Device Utilities: added Device Features: AAM, APM, Read Look Ahead, Volatile Write Cache, Write-Read-Verify
  • Generate Bad Sectors: added the possibility to write custom data into bad sectors
  • Password and Firmware Recovery: support for Hitachi drives via Atola SATA-IDE adapter (contact us if you bought your system before November 2014 to receive the adapter for free)
  • User manual is now shipped with the software in pdf form and is available from the Help menu
  • User interface tweaks for better experience on Microsoft Surface Pro 3 tablets

Bugfixes

  • Automatic Checkup: Significant PCB diagnostics improvements, Insight was misdiagnosing certain drives as "bad PCB"
  • Imaging: Head map was not correctly built on certain WD and Seagate hard drive models
  • File Recovery: a few fixes in the File Map creation
  • Case Management: Case printing was slow when there were too many reports to print
  • Case Management: Some exported reports contain invalid links to specific log files
  • Imaging: Read Long (discard ECC) did not work correctly on IDE drives
  • Firmware Recovery: Insight failed to read Firmware map on some newest Western Digital drives when ATA password protection is enabled
  • File Recovery: better support for keyboard navigation
  • Case Management: Assigning a case number now works properly for drives with invalid characters in Model, Firmware revision and Serial number
  • USB flash media identification has been improved
  • Dozens of other fixes and stability improvements

Atola Insight Forensic 4.0

Release date: April 21, 2014

Initial release of Atola Insight Forensic

Previous Atola Insight releases

Atola Insight 3.2

December 05, 2013

New Features

  • Password recovery now supports all latest WD and Seagate drives
  • Password recovery can now reset a password temporarily, until a power cycle (nothing is written onto hard drive)
  • Automatic Diagnostics now supports all latest Seagate drives (by-head graphs)
  • DiskSense Ethernet now better handles short network outages
  • Disk identification timeout can now be specified via Preferences
  • SSD Trim feature
  • Disk Editor: added an option to quickly disable MBR
  • Fill or Erase: Pattern can now be specified for DoD wipe method
  • When specifying sector ranges in Insight, abbreviations can now be used, i.e. 3M -> 3000000, 40K -> 40000
  • Added more keyboard shortcuts
  • Speed improvements
  • Cosmetic improvements

Imaging:

  • Added select head support for all latest Seagate drives
  • Media map can now be zoomed in/out
  • Added "Next Head" button to instantly skip to the next head
  • Imaging speed improvements
  • Added an option to skip re-reading the same bad sectors on subsequent passes
  • Insight will now verify Target media for partitions and will output a warning if partitions are detected
  • Found file signatures can now be exported

Case Management:

  • Export/Import entire case
  • Improved case search
  • Reports can now be exported into PDF, HTML, RTF formats
  • DiskSense Unit Serial Number and Write Protection status are now saved into each report
  • Many improvements in File attachments
  • Custom headers in Reports (add a graphic logo and custom text)

Bugfixes

  • Imaging: Write errors during frequent sector skips
  • Imaging: When enabling Write Protection, DiskSense Ethernet was falling back to PIO mode when working with IDE drives
  • Many other small bugfixes

Atola Insight 3.1

July 08, 2013

Starting with this release, Windows XP and Vista are no longer supported. See this blog post for details.

New Features

  • Imaging: hex viewer for Target port
  • Imaging: pre-hash, post-hash, auto-compare after imaging
  • Imaging: reorganized settings
  • Imaging: ability to export non-imaged sectors into csv
  • Imaging: custom LBA intervals are now shown on the result screen as well as in case history
  • Imaging: ability to view LBA addresses + contents of those sectors where file signatures were detected
  • Case management: full history export/print
  • Case management: file attachments
  • Case management: picture previews
  • Case management: more detailed logging of all actions (including write protection toggle)
  • Case management: report style improvements
  • Case management: Clear device history option has been removed to prevent accidental loss of case history
  • Disk compare: significant speed improvements
  • Disk compare: it is now possible to specify LBA intervals to compare
  • New feature: Hash calculation for source and target (separate menu)
  • Licensing: it is now possible to extend a subscription offline
  • Better Ethernet unit reconnection upon connection loss
  • Added a menu item for Disksense unit information
  • Added a more obvious indication of disabled write protection

Major bugfixes:

  • Fixed an SQLite error while scanning for file signatures
  • Automatic diagnosis froze while head test in rare cases
  • Password extraction on Seagate 5400.3 did not work in some cases
  • Unclip HPA/DCO did not work for some 2.5-inch Seagate drives

Atola Insight 3.0

January 31, 2013

New Features

  • Live stats of file signatures discovered during imaging
  • Many functions can now be executed on the Target hard drive without the need to reconnect it to Source port
  • Ability to run different operations on source and target ports simultaneously
  • Added the ability to create a list of files containing sectors recovered with Read Long command
  • New Imaging setting: "Limit target disk size to source size using HPA"
  • Single-button, fully automatic HPA and DCO unclipping
  • Added the ability to (re-)wipe sectors on target drive that were not copied from source
  • GPT partitions support for ext2/3/4 in File Recovery and Imaging.

Improvements:

  • Revamped and improved user interface
  • Speed of imaging and file recovery operations has been improved on Ethernet unit
  • Added HPA, DCO, Password indicators
  • Case tracking now also tracks actions for Target disks separately; this is completely seamless
  • Imager will now give a warning when the Source hard drive is clipped via either HPA or DCO
  • Terminal history is now saved into the case management
  • Modification dates of recovered files are now preserved
  • Speed of MD5 and SHA checksum calculation was improved
  • Other small improvements

Bugfixes:

  • When performing by-head imaging into an image file, imaging could freeze on jump
  • Bad sectors were not always highlighted during imaging on the block read speed graph (cosmetic)
  • Formatting fixes in diagnosis report
  • Insight did not properly record sudden power loss on IDE hard drives during imaging
  • Rare crash when creating file lists
  • Memory leak when resuming an imaging session
  • Automatic password removal did not work on Hitachi L9SA drives
  • Language fixes in Japanese and Chinese versions
  • MD5/SHA checksum was not saved into case management upon completion of imaging
  • More than 100 small bug fixes.

Atola Insight 2.6

July 27, 2012

New in Imaging:

  • Better handling of damaged hard drives on DiskSense Ethernet units
  • Disk-to-Disk imaging speed increased up to 180 MB/s on DiskSense Ethernet units
  • Disk-to-File imaging speed increased up to 85 MB/s via DiskSense Ethernet units
  • Added support for copying of only occupied sectors on ExFAT partitions
  • Introduced additional settings for each pass (Forced PIO, Disable Read Cache)
  • Added an option to automatically set the target disk capacity to match the source via HPA
  • Current position of the imager is now more obvious

New in File Recovery:

  • File Recovery now supports ExFAT partitions
  • Each file now has an integrity indicator showing how much of the file Insight actually copied during the imaging process
  • Added the ability to view file map on the disk to see which sectors of a file were actually copied
  • File list generation
  • Better speeds when working with IDE hard drives via DiskSense Ethernet unit
  • Added support for very long paths

New in Diagnostics:

  • Introducing a much better head checkup
  • Better support for SSD media

New in Media Scan:

  • It is now possible to define a timeout
  • Better media scan speeds on DiskSense USB units

New in Media Recovery:

  • Better logging in Media Recovery
  • Added an option to use ReadLong (discard ECC) while performing Media Recovery

General improvements:

  • Many speed improvements
  • Better handling of SSD media
  • DiskSense Ethernet can now have several IP addresses assigned to it at the same time
  • Added an option to manage IP addresses for DiskSense Ethernet via DiskSense search window
  • Atola Insight now sends a Spindown command to hard drives before powering them down to properly flush disk cache

Bug fixes:

  • Fixed an issue in File Recovery due to which it was impossible to recover certain files on ext2/3/4 partitions
  • Many minor fixes

Atola Insight 2.5

February 12, 2012

New features:

  • When imaging to file, Insight will always try to create a sparse file. This will significantly improve the speed of image file creation on a local NTFS volume, especially when performing reverse imaging.
  • NTFS partitions declared in GPT (GUID partition table) are now supported by File Recovery and Data-Only Imaging
  • Quick file search added to File Recovery
  • Search from current folder added to File Recovery
  • It is now possible to calculate the size of checked files in File Recovery

Bug fixes:

  • Fixed a rare crash, after which it was impossible to resume imaging
  • It was impossible to image certain WD drives by selected heads (for example WD Raptor)
  • On certain PC platforms diagnostics by heads worked incorrectly (only on DiskSense Ethernet)

Atola Insight 2.4

December 16, 2011

Enhancements:

  • Imaging interface was reworked to provide more streamlined process for manual multipass imaging
  • LBA48 support for bad sector recovery (Read Long/Read discarding ECC)
  • It is now possible to manually skip to a specific LBA during imaging
  • Better support for firmware access and password recovery for the latest WD drives (including Raptor models).
  • New ID sector viewer
  • File recovery engine now does not pause to ask questions during the file recovery process
  • New feature in Atola Imager Forensic version: Disk Viewer
  • Atola Imager now has Home screen with Source disk info

Bug fixes:

  • File recovery did not properly support paths longer than 260 characters
  • It was impossible to cancel a long partition search operation
  • F2 hotkey (re-detect) sometimes did not work
  • Many other small fixes and improvements

Atola Insight 2.3

September 9, 2011

Enhancements:

  • New disk editor replaces old disk viewer
  • Significantly improved automatic head diagnostics algorithms
  • Number of imaged sectors is now shown during imaging
  • Insight will now automatically re-connect to the DiskSense Ethernet unit in case connection has been lost

Bug fixes:

  • Reading of big firmware modules (>255 sectors) failed on certain IDE WD hard drive models
  • Media scan graph glitches
  • Automatic password recovery did not unlock drives when the last character of the extracted password is not 0x00
  • Database issues during installation
  • Case manager did not display all cases by default
  • Many other fixes

Atola Insight 2.2

June 23, 2011

Enhancements:

  • Full support for 3TB+ hard drives
  • Password Extraction and Removal: added support for oldest (less than 80GB) and newest (F1, F2, F3, F4, MP4, M7 and others) Samsung hard drives
  • Firmware access: added support for newest (F1, F2, F3, F4, MP4, M7 and others) Samsung hard drives
  • Case management now supports shared/network database
  • Media scan now supports scanning only select heads
  • Automatic Diagnosis now tests each head separately during the checkup
  • It is now possible to set a specific timeout for diagnostics
  • Imaging: Specific rules for imaging (after X errors do Reset/Power cycle/Change direction)
  • Imaging: Media map is now 50 times more compact and 20 times quicker to initialize (especially noticeable on 1-3 TB hard drives)
  • Imaging: It is now possible to omit specifying SMTP server for e-mail notifications
  • Imaging: Occupied sectors only option will now include sector ranges for all unknown partitions
  • Imaging: It is now possible to limit the maximum block size for read operations
  • Imaging: Time estimation algorithm improved
  • Fill/Erase now supports Enhanced Secure Erase
  • Fill/Erase: Speed of Erasing with pattern on DiskSense Ethernet has been significantly improved
  • File Recovery: Optimized memory usage
  • File Recovery: Option to re-read a folder
  • PC power saving algorithms are now disabled on the host PC during an operation
  • Separate button for powering on the Target disk (for DS Ethernet users)
  • Customer Experience Improvement program added to Insight

Bug fixes:

  • Many bugfixes

Atola Insight 2.1

April 21, 2011

Enhancements:

  • Files hit by bad sectors during imaging are now marked in the file recovery dialog
  • 64-bit Windows OS are now fully supported
  • Added industry-standard disk wipe algorithms: NIST 800-88 and DoD 5220.22-M
  • Offline activation (activation from another PC)
  • More reports are now saved into the case management

Bug fixes:

  • "Ethernet writing" errors on DiskSense Ethernet when imaging severely damaged drives
  • Many fixes in File Recovery
  • Small fixes in Imager

Atola Insight 2.0

February 18, 2011

Enhancements:

  • HFS/HFS+ support in file recovery and imager
  • GPT (Guid partition table) support in file recovery and imager
  • Imaging by select heads for IBM/Hitachi hard drives
  • New, easier to use disk history/case management system
  • It is now possible to copy a split image back to hard drive
  • How-to videos accessible from the software
  • File Recovery speed improvements (faster partition search, faster directory access)
  • Sorting in File Recovery
  • Possibility to select all files in File Search dialog
  • Better handling of errors when imaging by select heads

Bug fixes:

  • Automatic diagnostics sometimes stopped with "Bad PCB" diagnosis even when the PCB is fine
  • File modification date on very old FAT partitions are now displayed correctly
  • Insight now uses less memory when searching for partitions
  • Bootcode mode issue on Maxtor drives has been fixed (loaded did not work)
  • Media Scan does not fail anymore on SSD disks while working with DiskSense Ethernet unit
  • Media Scan can now handle large amounts of bad sectors (there were issues on Ethernet unit)
  • More than 100 other small fixes and improvements

See more information about this release with screenshots in our blog: https://blog.atola.com/atola-insight-2-0/

Atola Insight 1.5.1

November 19, 2010

Bug fixes:

  • "Unknown case" folder is no more translated in localized versions
  • Sporadic software crash while imaging by select heads
  • Imaging crashed when attempting to copy only occupied sectors off a damaged Ext partition
  • A few other minor fixes

Atola Insight 1.5.0

November 9, 2010

Enhancements:

  • Added automatic password removal feature for Hitachi L9SA, B9A3 models
  • File recovery engine: added support for ext2/ext3/ext4 file systems
  • Imaging by select head for Western Digital hard drives
  • File recovery engine: it is now possible to show/hide deleted files on FAT file systems
  • Partition search speed was singificantly increased
  • Imaging of only occupied sectors for ext2/ext3/ext4 partitions
  • Imaging process can now be directed to specific sector by clicking the disk map
  • Imaging settings redesigned
  • Added option to skip writing pattern to destination media on error
  • It is now possible to specify direction of imaging for each pass
  • Added option to disable read-look-ahead (read cache) during imaging
  • Further increase of imaging speed
  • Firmware browser now supports writing firmware modules saved by PC-3000 (WD only)
  • Many other improvements

Bug fixes:

  • "Ethernet writing hang-up" error when imaging
  • When recovering files, the log file did not contain information about skipped files
  • File recovery engine consumed a lot of memory and was slow at times
  • Automatic diagnostics sometimes failed to diagnose Hitachi HDPxxxxxxGLA360 and some latest Seagate hard drives
  • Many other fixes

See more information about this release with screenshots in our blog: https://blog.atola.com/new-features-in-atola-insight-1-5/

Atola Insight 1.4.8

July 29, 2010

Enhancements:

  • Imaging by specific heads support for Seagate
  • Added more explanation on Automatic Firmware Recovery tab
  • Overall imaging stability and user interface improvements

Atola Insight 1.4.7

June 2, 2010

Enhancements:

  • Full support for FAT32 and FAT16 in File Recovery and when imaging only occupied sectors
  • Image writer allows writing images back to hard drives
  • Insight now locates Ethernet units automatically
  • Force PIO mode feature

Bug fixes:

  • Read Long/Read without ECC has been improved
  • Disk comparison speed improved
  • Fill/Erase speed improved
  • Target media now powers down only when an imaging session finishes without manual interruption
  • When selecting target media, Target device now remains not powered until selected
  • Device viewer: Update from file function was writing to Source media even if Target media was selected
  • Copy only occupied sectors mode: It is now possible to image NTFS volumes with 1KB and 8KB sector size
  • Fill or Erase: system disk is now unavailable for selection
  • SHA-512 and SHA-384 algorithms provided wrong checksums when imaging more than 8 million sectors at a time
  • Many other small fixes

Atola Insight 1.4.6

April 22, 2010

Enhancements:

  • Automatic firmware update for DiskSense Ethernet
  • Disk viewer now works for Target media (Ethernet version) and disks attached to the host PC
  • Significant increase of imaging speed (105+ MB/sec on modern hard drives)

Bug fixes:

  • Imaging was showing all sectors as errors on badly damaged drives (Ethernet version)
  • Software crashes on badly damaged drives (Ethernet version)
  • Sporadic unit disconnection while imaging badly damaged drives (Ethernet version)
  • Ethernet unit was silently switching to PIO mode on damaged drives
  • Registers display is now more accurate on (Ethernet version)
  • Re-identification during Media Scan was throwing an exception
  • Re-identification during Imaging sometimes caused issues
  • "Ethernet Writing Hangup" bug
  • Many small fixes

Atola Insight 1.4.4

February 19, 2010

Enhancements:

  • Disk comparison engine
  • Japanese localization

Bug fixes:

  • Many small fixes

Atola Insight 1.4.3

December 24, 2009

Enhancements:

  • Windows 7 support

Bug fixes:

  • DiskSense Ethernet may hang when writing to Target drive
  • Wrong statistics when reverse-imaging to Target drive
  • No crashes anymore when run under a non-administrator account
  • E-mail settings were not applied immediately when changed during imaging
  • Many other fixes

Atola Insight 1.4.2

November 20, 2009

Enhancements:

  • Hard disk manufacturer is now printed on the home screen
  • E-mail notifications for imaging
  • Hard drive selection screen reworked

Bug fixes:

  • Fixed a number of issues when working with terminal
  • When reading of public firmware map on Hitachi drivefails, Insight failed to read system firmware map
  • Case selection window is now not displayed when there's only one case assigned with the drive
  • When closing Insight and saving the current case and there was an error saving the case, Insight
    • silently shut down
  • There was no beep when password recovery finishes
  • Numbers with commas (as separators) were not accepted
  • When copying imaging log into Windows Clipboard, lines were not properly sorted
  • When imaging certain drives with read errors (bad blocks), Insight was showing wrong data in Error Register (ABRT+ICRC)
  • Partitions can now be found on target drive even if it was smaller than source
  • When device was unidentified, certain operations silently finished without a warning
  • Media map manager minor fixes
  • Media recovery minor fixes
  • Insight incorrectly handled the interruption of device location process
  • When imaging to disk, imager stopped silently on out-of-space condition on target device
  • Secure erase procedure was showing an incorrect message on process interruption
  • Case history now properly records secure erase and fill operations
  • Imager now properly logs ranges of sectors
  • Switching between Ethernet and USB DiskSense units (when using both) failed occasionally
  • Automatic diagnostics process now ignores current burst on HDD power on
  • Backspace now properly works in Terminal
  • File recovery was creating 0-byte files on out-of-space condition
  • While scanning a damaged hard drive with Media Scan in "Fast" mode, DiskSense USB might get "disconnected"
  • It was impossible to read/write NVRAM on Hitachi drives that failed to detect
  • NVRAM is now being saved first when performing a full firmware backup
  • Password recovery sometimes "extracted" wrong password off Seagate drives
  • Fill/erase now correctly handles unexpected HDD power off
  • Pepare Destination error log fixes
  • Status and Error registers not always properly indicated hard drive status when working with DiskSense Ethernet
  • DiskSense Ethernet unit hangs when scanning a Slave IDE hard drive
  • Reidentification of IDE disks on DiskSense Ethernet sometimes was taking up to 20 seconds
  • Crash when changing the IP address of DiskSense Ethernet in Device Selection dialog
  • Wrong firmware revision is displayed when assigning case number
  • Device selection: wrong focus in device list
  • Secure erase did not verify that the hard drive is powered on
  • Crash when imaging bigger hard drive to a smaller hard drive upon reaching the end of target drive
  • Many other fixes

    • Atola Insight 1.4.0

    September 30, 2009

    Enhancements:

    • Introducing support for DiskSense Gigabit Ethernet edition
    • IDE/SATA selection dialog before starting the diagnostics
    • The software now does not show the device selection screen on every start
    • Other minor cosmetic enhancements

    Bug fixes:

    • When COM port cannot be open, the software crashed
    • File recovery engine crash in some rare cases
    • On SATA WD (Marvell) hard drives, the cancellation of module read operation resulted in hard drive hang
    • Rare "Cannot move files" error when assigning a new case ID
    • Cancellation of HDD diagnostics process could take a long time
    • Software crash on disk read error when forming a media map
    • Full firmware backup on WD hard drives did not save ROM image
    • When copying logs into Windows buffer, the lines were in mixed order
    • Insight failed to properly recognize damaged Fujitsu hard drives
    • When submitting a bugreport, e-mail address had to be reentered every time
    • "Run diagnostics for selected device" checkbox did not make diagnostics actually start
    • Media Scan and Imaging went nuts on very small hard drives (1000 sectors or so)
    • No "operation finished" sound when firmware backup operation completes
    • Show/hide log button in File Recovery
    • When reading damaged module off a Hitachi drive, sometimes the next good module was also marked as bad
    • Media recovery: Remap unreadable sectors didn't work properly
    • Rare crash when unlocking a Seagate hard drive
    • Many other fixes

    Atola Insight 1.3.8

    August 14, 2009

    Enhancements:

    • It is now possible to sort firmware modules in firmware browser
    • Fill/Erase feature now has an error log
    • HDD Firmware revision is now added to the Repository path
    • When imaging to file, Insight now properly handles a situation when there is not enough free space on the destination media

    Bug fixes:

    • Fixed an issue: when imaging certain drives, random delays occurred after encountering an unreadable (bad) sector
    • Fixed a delay when starting Fill or Erase routine
    • Fixed an issue: Terminal did not start properly after closing the software with Terminal window minimized
    • Fixed: when software improperly shuts down, sometimes it refused to start
    • Minor fixes in File Browser navigation (Ctrl+Left key)
    • When opening Atola Forums from the menu, Atola Insight crashed when there was no default browser properly installed
    • Scrolling is now working properly in ID sector viewer
    • Other fixes

    Atola Insight 1.3.7

    July 27, 2009

    Enhancements:

    • Atola support forum access from software (via Help menu)
    • Added support for 2TB+ hard drives
    • It is now possible to unlock a Seagate hard drive working in Slave mode
    • Disk Viewer now displays sector numbers
    • Disk Viewer can now write sectors from file to disk
    • File system browser navigation improved
    • Prepare destination feature moved to Device Utilities (New name: Fill or Erase)
    • Secure erase option has been added to Fill or Erase
    • Device Configuration Overlay feature redesigned to prevent accidental disk access

    Bug fixes:

    • Media scan graph didn't work well on small hard drives
    • Incorrect time estimation while imaging is now fixed
    • CTRL+C now works correctly in Terminal
    • Damaged Fujitsu drives are now properly recognized
    • Driver installation issue resolved
    • .img file extension now correctly added to image files during imaging
    • File system browser sometimes did not properly detect partitions in a disk image
    • Many other small fixes

    Atola Insight 1.3.6

    June 17, 2009

    Enhancements:

    • Reverse imaging
    • Checksum calculation (MD5, SHA1, SHA224, SHA256, SHA384, SHA512)

    Bug fixes:

    • Media scan graph was slow on some platforms
    • Write protection was always on when working with drives, connected directly to the PC
    • When you save imaging settings, "Power down after imaging complete" option is now saved as well
    • Many other small fixes

    Atola Insight 1.3.5

    May 15, 2009

    Enhancements:

    • New NTFS file recovery engine
    • Imager: It is now possible to split big images into chunks
    • Imager: Possibility to fill unreadable sectors with pre-selected pattern when writing to destination
    • Imager: Possibility to save imaging settings

    Bug fixes:

    • Automatic firmware recovery on Toshiba hard drives is now working properly
    • Password removal on Toshiba hard drives was crashing in some cases
    • When an attached SATA hard drive is constantly BUSY, automatic diagnostics reported wrong results
    • COM terminal did not work properly after you create a new case while it is open
    • Security controls reorganized
    • Many other small fixes

    Atola Insight 1.3.3

    April 2, 2009

    Enhancements:

    • New disk viewer
    • After imaging is complete, it is now possible to export the list of unreadable sectors

    Bug fixes:

    • Access violation error while imaging

    Atola Insight 1.3.2

    March 5, 2009

    Enhancements:

    • Explanation is now displayed if an unidentified device (or empty IDE or SATA channel) selected
    • Diagnostic reports and case history entries can now be printed or exported
    • Lines are now highlighted in SMART viewer

    Bug fixes:

    • Automatic checkup crashed in some rare situations
    • Several minor bugfixes in disk imager

    Atola Insight 1.3.1

    February 14, 2009

    Enhancements:

    • Automatic password removal now also supports Hitachi K9AT and K9SA models

    Bug fixes:

    • Resolved: Atola Insight may randomly crash when imaging a drive

    Atola Insight 1.3

    February 12, 2009

    Enhancements:

    • New Hitachi models are now supported: H9AT, H9SA, J9AT, J9SA, K9AT, K9SA
    • Automatic password removal now also supports Hitachi H9AT, H9SA, J9AT, J9SA models
    • Current diagrams are now included with the diagnostics report
    • It is now possible to print the diagnostics report with CTRL+P key (we will add a separate button in the upcoming releases)
    • It is now possible to save current diagrams into a PNG or CSV file.

    Bug fixes:

    • Insight did not work properly with some Hitachi G9SA drives
    • "Cannot open device" when imaging an undetected hard drive
    • F2 key now works properly on all screens of the program
    • Other minor bugfixes

    Atola Insight 1.2

    January 30, 2009

    Enhancements:

    • New imager that supports multipass imaging, media maps, skip forward, etc
    • RS-232 terminal now supports Seagate 7200.11 hard drives

    Bug fixes:

    • "DiskSense unit disconnected" error has been fixed (new DiskSense unit firmware released)

    Please note that we are phasing out our old file recovery engine. We will be replacing it with a much easier and more powerful system.

    Atola Insight 1.1

    December 4, 2008

    Enhancements:

    • Imaging speed increased by an average of 5 megabytes per second
    • First phase of current monitor accuracy improvement. Next version of Atola Insight will include one more fix that will make current monitor as accurate as it can get.
    • New feature: disk wiping (also supports wiping hard drives attached to the system IDE/SATA controllers)
    • New feature: filling disks with patterns (also supports filling hard drives attached to the system IDE/SATA controllers)
    • Added descriptions for Western Digital firmware modules
    • All firmware modules are now marked by color depending on their state
    • Automatic module repair function for Maxtor hard drives, accessible from right-click menu on the desired module
    • Module checksum recalculation/correction for Maxtor hard drives (with full automatic support for P-List length and "System Head")
    • When performing full firmware backup on WD drives, a copy of ROM is also saved now
    • When saving NVRAM from a Hitachi hard drive, it is now checked for consistency; Atola Insight will report if NVRAM contents appears to be invalid
    • Improved support of some latest Western Digital hard drives (desktop and laptop)
    • "Get map" speed improvements for latest Western Digital hard drives (desktop and laptop)
    • Improved support of some laptop Samsung hard drives (LQ firmware series)
    • Added support for 23 Hitachi hard drive model lines: PLA3, PLAT, ATCS, DLA3, DLAT, VLAT, DTLA, AVER, AVVA, AVVN, AVV2, ATDA, DPTA, DADA, DARA, DBCA, DCXA, DHEA, DTTA, DJNA, DJSA, DKLA, DTCA
    • Possibility to view program version via Help menu
    • Possibility to navigate to online program manual and submit feedback via Help menu
    • Other minor improvements

    Bug fixes:

    • It is now impossible to launch two copies of Atola Insight at the same time
    • Fixed an issue with Atola Insight imager when source drive has invalid characters in its serial number
    • Fixed an issue where a SATA hard drive becomes inaccessible after interrupting an operation with firmware modules
    • Fixed an issue with Automatic diagnostics where it didn't properly detect bad sectors on the media in some cases
    • Fixed: file recovery engine may hang when you attempt to cancel it
    • A number of other fixes

    Atola Insight 1.0

    November 5, 2008

    Enhancements:

    • Case Management: If the hard drive does not report a valid Serial Number, Insight will ask the Operator if they want to manually enter the Serial Number
    • Case Management: Default case folder selection
    • Diagnostics: Slave devices are now supported
    • Interface: Write protection indicator on main form
    • Write Protection is now fully functional and protecting from any write attempts, including firmware area alteration attempts and other operations that might directly or indirectly write to the firmware area.
    • When viewing firmware modules, they are now always being read from disk without asking questions
    • Make bad sectors routine now accepts sector ranges
    • New DiskSense Interface firmware support has been added
    • Short circuit indicator on main form
    • When creating a Maxtor Loader, it is now possible to change the output filename
    • Slave device detection has been improved
    • Re-identification has been improved
    • Lots of other cosmetic enhancements

    Major bugfixes:

    • Canceled diagnostics was not restarting upon request
    • Program freezes when working with IDE Samsung hard drives attached as a Slave device
    • Diagnostics: checking damaged filesystems sometimes lead to Program Exception
    • Make Bad Sector and Media Recovery: several bugfixes
    • Serial port: did not work properly on some platforms
    • Case Management: Losing case history when closing Atola Insight while case ID is not properly assigned
    • Canceling a firmware map importing operation was destroying previously loaded firmware map
    • Installer fixes
    • Lots of other fixes

    Atola Insight Beta 0.9

    October 13, 2008

    Enhancements:

    • Revised the process of MS SQL server installation
    • Automatic port switching (IDE/SATA) during HDD reidentification
    • Atola Insight now checks if the hard drive was replaced and asks to start a new case if it was replaced
    • Maxtor: loader building capability
    • Maxtor: module checksum recalculation
    • Maxtor: possibility to write a clean G-List, P-List, DMCS modules
    • Maxtor: firmware read speed increased significantly
    • Imaging: default value of "maximum number of consecutive power cycles" reduced to 2

    Major bugfixes:

    • Crash during automatic checkup in some cases
    • Media Map and Disk Viewer: sometimes software hangs when accessing sectors beyond LBA28 range
    • Media Map: Custom range filter is fixed
    • Imaging: when source is re-powered, it was falling back to PIO mode
    • Fixed typos/improper wording in the interface

    Atola Insight Beta 0.85

    September 15, 2008

    Enhancements:

    • New feature: Media Map support (accessible within Image/Duplicate dialog), also called "Copy Map" feature

    Major bugfixes:

    • #56 Running on Windows Vista as non-administrator caused issues with Atola IDE driver and Imaging/Duplication
    • #58 Reverse imaging to a file, Imaging hangs while creating empty file
    • #54 When scanning in Fast mode, Atola Insight crashes upon reaching the end of the surface

    Atola Insight Beta 0.8

    September 1, 2008

    Enhancements:

    • Support of Windows Vista OS (32-bit only at this time)
    • Additional fields are stored into the database during firmware backup: Maxtor's ROM CRC, Maxtor's "Model", and Hitachi's microcode revision. This is useful for locating a firmware in the database.
    • Read/Write ROM on Western Digital drives with Marvell CPU.
    • When reading NVRAM on Hitachi hard drives, its header is now validated and issues are reported
    • Firmware map import feature added for Maxtor, WD and Samsung.
    • Reverse and fast options for media scan
    • Error reporting improved; customers can now leave comments when program crashes.
    • Stability improvements and bug fixes for DiskSense firmware.
    • Firmware updater for DiskSense is now included

    Major bugfixes:

    • #40: Entry point 'PatchNVRAM_DisableFWAccess' was not found in 'SuperLib.dll' when removing password on Hitachi
    • #44: Imaging: copy to destination with the exact same size triggers error
    • #46: Imaging: when choosing destination disk PInvoke's Access Violation sometimes occurs
    • #36: Disk locked with Maximum security level was reported as locked with High security level

    Atola Insight Beta 0.7

    July 1, 2008

    Initial beta release