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Atola Insight 0.85

On September 15th, we have released a new version of Atola Insight Beta. I would like to elaborate on a new feature that we’ve added in this update. We call it Media Map. Media Map   The process of copying data from the source drive is very important in data recovery. But reading every sector of the drive is not always needed and sometimes can be even harmful, especially when condition of the device is getting worse with the lapse of time. Therefore, it is often reasonable to copy only the appropriate sectors – those which contain customer’s data and skip sectors which belong to the free space of the Read more…

By Dmitry Postrigan, ago
Atola insight

Atola Insight 0.8

On September the 1st we’ve released the first update for the Atola Insight beta since releasing it to the public. The update contains critical bugfixes, performance improvements, and new features. Full changelog is available at: http://atola.com/products/insight/changelog/ A lot of new stuff is on the way and will be included in the next releases.Future releasesWe have rethought our release strategy and from now on we’ll release new version every two weeks.So the next one is planned to be on September 15th.

By Dmitry Postrigan, ago
Atola insight

Atola Insight: Status Update

We are finishing up the testing of our new Atola DiskSense unit; and we are also finishing up the Atola Insight software, meaning that we will be releasing our first public beta version on July 1st, 2008. Initially, we’ve planned the beta for May 2008. However, at some point we realized that the Atola Insight beta could be MUCH better if we finish up two major tasks: 1) Release completely new DiskSense units (with internal power supply and a SATA I/II port). 2) Finish up some key features in Atola Insight (automatic diagnostics, automatic password removal, automatic firmware recovery, and full firmware access for almost all hard drives). This way Read more…

By Dmitry Postrigan, ago
Atola insight

Atola Insight: Case Management explained

This is something new to the data recovery software/equipment industry, so I have a feeling that it needs to be explained. Basically, case management allows tracking everything that is being done to a particular hard drive. I will give a couple real world examples: More than one person works on a particular hard drive When a company has more than one data recovery engineer, several people may work on a single hard drive. In this case keeping track on what has been already done to a hard drive as well as proper communication between engineers can become a real challenge. One data recovery engineer works on several hard drives at Read more…

By Dmitry Postrigan, ago
Atola insight

Atola Insight: Supported hard drives

We receive this question again and again: what hard drives (model numbers) are supported by Atola Insight? I completely realize the importance of this question, but unfortunately, there is no simple answer. When we were designing Atola Insight, we’ve faced a dilemma: whether we add support for new hard drives on a per-model basis or use a different approach. We have chosen a different approach, and I will try to explain what it is. Per-model basis means that we start working on new hard drive models as soon as we have them in our lab, which means that there is always 3-12 months delay before the software can work with Read more…

By Dmitry Postrigan, ago
Atola insight

Update on Atola Insight

We had a fully working Atola Insight software together with Atola DiskSense unit on the show, so anyone could see it in action and even try it. I am very proud that we had no program crashes and no hardware failures during the expo, thanks to Fedir, Andrey and Alexander — our top-notch developers. It was pleasure to meet our potential customers on the show and at the seminar and I’d like to thank everyone who attended. I’ve learned a lot while listening to the feedback, and we have already made changes to our current road map according to the feedback. Last couple of weeks my email was literally flooded Read more…

By Dmitry Postrigan, ago
Atola insight

Answering questions about Atola Insight

It’s been two days since we announced Atola Insight, and we are already virtually flooded with questions and feedback about it. I will now go through the most common questions: Pricing: It will be a stand-alone product with a set price; no per-use charge as seen in Repair Station/HDD Unlock Wizard. Sorry, no prices are set so far. Preliminary pricing information can be expected in February 2008. Full roadmap (2-year development plan) will be released in March 2008. Presentation at CES 2008: I will do my best to have it taped. If that doesn’t happen for any reason, then I will at least publish my powerpoint presentation (EDIT: see comments Read more…

By Dmitry Postrigan, ago
Atola insight

Firmware recovery with Atola Insight

I am happy to provide everyone with the a new screenshot that we’ve got today: Accessing firmware files (system area modules): Manual firmware recovery: downloading firmware This is an old-fashion way of accessing firmware files (modules): you can perform the recovery yourself. But wait, Atola Insight can do much more than that. It can automatically repair most kinds of firmware damage for you; all you have to do is to click a single button. Automatic firmware recovery in progress In automatic mode, the program first creates full firmware backup, diagnoses the problem, and then takes all necessary steps to recover the drive. Automatic mode saves tremendous amount of time since Read more…

By Dmitry Postrigan, ago
Atola insight

Atola Insight at CES 2008

If you want to see Atola Insight in action, then you are welcome to visit us at CES 2008. Project presentation at CES 2008 (January 7-10) in Las Vegas Booth number: 73539 (Look for YEC booth and ask for Dmitry Postrigan) in the Sands Convention Center. By the way, YEC also presents Shinobi, an HDD Unlocking tool powered by Atola Unlocker module. They also have all kinds of HDD duplicators. You have an opportunity to see all hi-tech HDD tools in one place, so do not miss the chance!

By Dmitry Postrigan, ago
Atola insight

Real time current monitor in Atola Insight

We’ve got it working today. There will be two kinds of current monitors in Atola Insight: full-sized monitor and tiny monitor. Tiny monitor can stay on the screen allowing to always keep an eye on hard drive’s power consumption. Current Monitor (click to see in full size) The image above shows normal spin-up and initialization currents (5V and 12V) for a desktop hard drive.

By Dmitry Postrigan, ago