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.

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.

Minor software update: version 5.5.1

This version was released to resolve several software stability and usability issues, as well as include most recent modifications that were applied to software base logics. It's recommended to update your software version 5 to latest version 5.5.1.

The changes include:

 

Stability

• The update resolves sudden software crash if operating with double-degraded RAID level 6 and direct indexes for Reed-Solomon code (all RAID editions);
• There are corrected several mistakes in RAID Definition Language (RDL) syntax analyzer (Professional Recovery);
• Detected and resolved data consistency issue with parallel disk imaging (Professional Recovery);

Usability

• Speed optimization of certain utility operation (data modification, disk erasing etc.);
• Debian/Ubuntu Linux .deb packages: default "gksu" rights elevation for GUI shortcuts;
• Digital signature on Mac OS X software for compatibility with Mac OS X 10.8 Gatekeeper.

 

Features

• Better detection and recovery of HFS+ file systems with severe metadata damage;
• Support of optional storage caching for faster recovery from slow, chunked or very segmented storages (Professional Recovery);
• Support of mdadm/span with defined striping.

Software updated: vesion five and half

UFS Explorer is updated to version 5.5 and gets more useful features. The update is considered as "regular" and thus it is free for all users of previous 5.x versions. New software release is available for download from download section of UFS Explorer web site.

What's new in this update

Windows logical volumes
Starting version 5.5 software recognizes and displays Windows logical volumes for simplified and alternative representation of locally mounted drives. It keeps showing classic disk/partition structure, but extends it with new group containing only Windows logical drives. This makes logical drive identification easier and allows to access data on dynamic disks (software RAID) immediately.
If you do not need this feature, you may easily turn it off for faster software startup.

Automated RAID Reconstruction
In this release it was added support of fully automated RAID reconstruction, including support of complex RAID-on-RAID configuration. Software will now detect known RAID configurations and build RAID automatically just after software start. The feature supports both complete and incomplete RAID with redundancy, running them in "degraded" mode.
It keeps monitoring RAID components and if missing part of "degraded" RAID will appear, software automatically adjusts RAID configuration to include missing component.
Want to build RAID degraded? Software will not modify RAID configurations created by the user.

Faster RAID operations
Total rework of RAID subsystem introduces much faster data access in "asynchronous mode". This allows to speed-up access on "striped" RAID (such as RAID 0, RAID 5, RAID 6, RAID 3 etc.) by several times for storage scan and data extraction purposes. This mode allows to speed-up even "degraded" RAID operations and scan RAID 5 or RAID 6 with missing drives much faster than single drive.

Adaptive RAID Recovery
Both classic synchronous and new asynchronous data access modes now support automated adaptive data recovery feature. If one or more RAID components contain bad blocks software may read only good data and adjust on-the-fly data access strategy to reconstruct missing information using redundancy. This function supports major redundancy methods, including mirroring, parity and Reed-Solomon code.

More RAID modes
The software now natively supports more possible RAID configurations (mainly related to RAID 6 and "vertical" data distributions: RAID 3/4, RAID 6/Vertical XOR etc.). New configurations support faster operation and adaptive recovery. Introduced RAID 1 support allows to use its redundancy to override bad blocks or even run it in asynchronous mode at same speeds as fast asynchronous RAID 0 by applying adaptive re-striping.

Full disk encryption support
Professional Recovery software edition now gets decryption module with support of major types of full-disk encryption algorithms and methods (such AES/AES256 with CBC and different Initialization Vector modes, including null, plain, ESSIV etc.). In case encryption key is known or can be recovered, software will be able to decrypt the volume (including RAID volumes) on-the-fly and thus access the data or recover lost or deleted files.
Decryption module is compatible to Linux device mapper encryption module (dm-crypt) and can be used with encrypted storages (including NAS storages) if encryption key is known.
 

UFS Explorer gets Compatible with Windows ® 7 and Windows ® 8 logos

Startig version 5.4 of UFS Explorer Standard, RAID and Professional Recovery  for Microsoft Windows ® have been tested to meet all of the technical requirements to be Compatible with Windows ® 7 and Windows ® 8 operating systems. This means the software have passed Microsoft-designed tests to help ensure they install readily every time and minimize the number of crashes, hangs, and restarts that you experience. This all helps ensure a compatible and reliable experience with any edition of Windows 7 and Windows 8, including 64-bit. List of supported operating systems is available on software web pages under "Specification" section.

NTFS encrypted files recovery process

Encrypted files on NTFS file system are stored in special format to handle transparent decryption of file data to whom who have access to these files. To handle transparent encryption the files on disk consist of two parts:

• file data itself in encrypted form;
• encryption metadata, required to decrypt the file.

File data is stored in usaul form, except file content is encrypted with strong encryption method. Encryption metadata is stored as so-called "utility stream" with special name "$EFS" and contains user identification data and copies of protected file encryption key. Only authenticated user from access list can decrypt an instance of file encryption key and thus access the data.

When file is lost, both encrypted data and encryption metadata are lost. The software recovers this information and restores association between these parts. On success, the software can use Windows API to restore encrypted file by supplying both encrypted data and encryption metadata. It does not decrypt file data so recovery operator still does not have access to sensitive user information.

Restored file can be only opened by a user from original file access control list (such as file owner).

In case file can not be restored in encrypted form because operating system does not support this (e.g. non-Windows OS or Windows NT4 OS) or target file system does not support encryption, the file will be restored in special format of encrypted file backup. This format is specified by Microsoft and contains both encrypted data and encryption metadata. These files can be restored by Windows EFS backup/restoration API. You may use free EFS Restoration Tool from UFS Explorer installation package to restore encrypted files from backup to encrypted files on NTFS.

Software update: version 5.4 released

The next regular update to UFS Explorer software (software version 5.4) is the usual, free update for users of version 5 software and is recommended for installation. Users of previous software versions (4 and below) may move to version 5.4 of the software according to terms and conditions of UFS Explorer software upgrade policy. The software is available for download from download section of UFS Explorer web site.

What's new in this update

It mostly introduces new features and enchantments to previous software versions. It also includes fixes for several stability and usability issues. The new key features include:

EFS support
Since version 5.4 all UFS Explorer software can recover also lost or deleted files with applied Windows File Encryption (or so-called Encrypted Files System - EFS). The software will not decrypt encrypted data, however it can restore encrypted file at safe target location. If operating system or target location do not support EFS, the software will save encrypted files in format of backup for later encrypted file restoration with free "EFS Restoration Tool" included into UFS Explorer for Windows pack.

Extension to RAID6
There are implemented more Reed-Solomon code based algorithms for data recovery after double storage failure in RAID6. Most RAID6 configuration are now supported, including Hewlett Packard ADG.

Legacy OS support
For outdated systems running Windows NT4, Windows 2000 or Windows XP before service pack it was introduced special software build marked as "Legacy OS". The software will run on any OS platform starting Windows NT4.0 with Service Pack 6 and later. Some minor (later OS specific) functions however will not work in this software build.

More accurate XFS recovery
In version 5.4 the software will recover files names and directory structure more accurately for better final result.