Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Software update: version 5.12

In version 5.12 there were applied certain modifications to complete adaption to new visual framework that were applied during development of next generation of CI Hex Viewer application that is expected for release in early 2014:


We have also discovered and fixed several issues in previous software version that include several visualization issues (e.g. custom structure RAID visualization) and saving/restoration of scan result.

Software version 5.12 is free update for users of version 5 and it is recommended in case you are experiencing issues with your current software version.

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Minor update: software version 5.11.1

Minor update to version 5.11.1 was released to fix several software usability issues and to update software to using of the most recent version of its native Framework. In this update there are modified behaviour of certain visual controls and it resolves some reported issues (e.g. in hexadecimal viewer control).

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Software update: version 5.11

In this release, we introduce rework of software I/O subsystem for better support of third-party emulated virtual disk drives (including support of disk images emulated as "windows disks" by products of ACE Lab.).
Among resolved problems is resolved issue with invalid behaviour of "search" function of hexadecimal viewer component in some scenarios.
New features include extension of functionality of hexadecimal viewer/editor component to support dynamic number of columns as well as support of alternative decimal numeration.
This update is free of charge for owners of UFS Explorer version 5 license.

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Minor update: software version 5.10.1

New software update introduces mostly reported problem fixes, which include the following:
  • Software crash and context menu issue under MacOS X in certain scenarios;
  • Damage of "localized" file names in data recovery scan result in certain scenarios;
  • Issue that prevented reading of large VMDK from VMFS file system if defined small file system block size.
New feature in this update is implemented support of Intel Matrix Storage RAID technology. With this update, software can automatically recognize LUN volumes on individual drives as well as automatically recognize and build RAID of different levels. Because of design, to make this feature work the drives must be connected via native interface to make drive serial numbers available to the running software.

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Software upgrade: version 5.10

SysDev Laboratories have release next regular update to all UFS Explorer software products: software version 5.10.
In this release, software receives  support of virtual machine snapshots by using virtual machine virtual disks and "chaining" them with single or multiple differential ("delta") disks. "Chaining" featue, allows using virtual disk in original state or with applied modification by one or more snapshots. To use this feature you should bind "delta" virtual disk to its base using new "Set as "Delta" for..." tool. The feature is available for desktop virtualization software (all editions) as well as for VMware ESX(i) VMFS file system (Professional Recovery software edition).

Other significant modification is pushed trial limits for software running in trial mode. Now there are following trial limits for different software editions:
 - UFS Explorer Standard Recovery, Raise Data Recovery - trial software cannot copy files with size over 256 KB;
 - UFS Explorer Standard Access, UFS Explorer RAID Recovery, UFS Explorer Professional Recovery - trial software cannot copy files with size over 768 KB.

There are also fixed several reported problems, inclusing missing localized file names when running data recovery under Linux in certain scenarios.

The software upgrade is considered as recommended to all users of UFS Explorer version 5. If you have earlier software version, you may still upgrade to latest software version according to software upgrade policy.


Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Software upgrade: version 5.9

Next regular software update (version 5.9) introduces enhanced functions related to secure (encrypted) storage operations. Starting from this release software receives support of more decryption algorithms and support of storages protected using Linux Unified Key Setup (LUKS).

New functions include:

  • recognition and support of LUKS-encrypted volumes;
  • password-based decryption of LUKS-encrypted volumes (using classic to Linux password-based access authentication);
  • more supported encryption algorithms (including such popular as AES (Rijndael), Serpent, Twofish, Blowfish etc.;
  • supported more cipher chaining modes, including popular CBC and more secure XTS.
UFS Explorer Professional Recovery now includes "Decrypt using LUKS information" tool.  Using LUKS metadata and valid user password it can decrypt encrypted volume in quite simple way. Raw encrypted storages can also be decrypted by specifying full cipher information (cipher algorithm, block chaining, "salt" method, decryption key).

The software is successfully tested with encrypted Network Attached Storages from popular vendors such as Buffalo and QNAP. Now it allows to recover even encrypted data in automated mode (if encryption key is known).

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Software upgrade: version 5.8

After intermediate software release (version 5.7.1) we are glad to introduce new software version 5.8. This release includes several new features and among them:
  • Full support of data recovery from Windows Server 2012 ReFS (Resilient File System). Supported functions include "read" access to ReFS formatted volumes from all supported operating system platforms, deleted files recovery from ReFS (this preserves file names, dates and structure), finding lost ReFS partitions and reconstruction of ReFS volumes after even severe damage and metadata corruption. Full support of data recovery from ReFS is only supported in UFS Explorer Professional Recovery.
  • Public version of UFS Explorer gets Unix "divvy" partition layout support;
  • UFS Explorer Professional Recovery also gets basic support of plain non-chunked EnCase Forensics image files.
The software upgrade is considered as recommended to all users of UFS Explorer version 5. If you have earlier software version, you may still upgrade to latest software version according to software upgrade policy.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Minor update: software version 5.7.1

In this update there are fixed several stability issues, including problems of handling "degraded" RAID 5 in certain scenarios. Other implemented updates include fixing of other reported minor usability or stability issues.
If you have any problems related to operating with degraded RAID 5, it's recommended to upgrade your software copy.

Friday, March 1, 2013

Software update: version 5.7 released

New software version 5.7 introduces new features and several problem fixes. The software is recommended for update to all version 5 software users.
The new features in version 5.7 comparing to 5.6 are:
  • Support of large Ext4 volumes (over 16TB);
  • Support of new generation of ZFS file system with use of "System attribute" instead of legacy "D-node";
  • Supoport of VMFS 5 extension that provides extended block addressing in ".sbc.sf".
Among resolved problems are:
  • Fixed read operation from RAID 3 with block size below 512 bytes;
  • Fixed IntelliRAW scan bug (appeared in version 5.6) when "fragmentation" flag is enabled.
Please note that users of "Professional Recovery" version 5.6 and below for Windows OS will have to re-activate the software using updated registration code.

Monday, January 14, 2013

Software update: version 5.6 released

New software version 5.6 brings more optimization, features and problem fixes. The most major modification is rework of data storage schema of data recovery "engine" that now allows both to save more memory and preserve file modification dates of found (recovered) files. Obviously this is only applicable to files and folders with available file/folder modification dates and not applicable to "synthetic" files found with IntelliRAW.
New features also include feature that allows to define in-memory caching of opened storages.  This  can significantly enhance performance of slow storages or algorithmic RAID with small stripe size (such as 512 bytes for RAID 5 or RAID 0).

There are also solved several problems, including:
  • problem with support of VMware "COWD" format used with ESX/ESXi virtual machine snapshots;
  • data truncation problem on large VMware VMDK files;
  • data truncation problem on extra large Ext3-Ext4 file system during data recovery scan.
The software is recommended for update. Please note however that data recovery scan results produced with older software versions (5.5.1 or below) can not be loaded with software version  5.6.