September 18th, 2008 
atola insight, data recovery, hard drives, usability 
Fedir Nepyivoda 
3 comments
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 drive. Also it is often useful to manually specify regions which should or should not be copied.
To make this possible, we introduce media map – the tool which has flexible means specifying sectors to be read.
Filters
Media map is specified by a sequence of filters. Each filter can be used to include or exclude sectors from the map.
Currently the following filters are available:
- Partition table (MBR and EBR-s)
This filter contains sectors which make up a partition table: Master Boot Record and all Extended Boot Records.
- Occupied space of partition
Contains only sectors which belong to files on partition. Deleted files and free space are not included.
- All sectors of partition
Contains all sectors of the partition. This includes all deleted files and free space as well.
- Entire disk
Contains all sectors of the device.
- Custom range
Allows to specify custom sector range.
Example1
It is needed to duplicate a hard drive with two partitions on it with minimum number of read operations. We define the following media map:
(Include) Partition table (MBR and EBR-s)
(Include) Occupied space of partition0
(Include) Occupied space of partition1
By applying this map, only sectors which belong to existent files will be copied. All other sectors will be skipped.
Example2
We need to create an exact copy of source hard drive, but partition #2 does not contain any important data, so we’d like to skip the area that belongs to it. The following media map can be defined:
(Include) Entire disk
(Exclude) All sectors of partition2
Further development
Media map is a very flexible tool and we plan to evolve further. New filters which will allow copying by specific disk heads (or specific surfaces) are to be implemented.
If you’d like to provide feedback or have a technical question, please contact us.
September 3rd, 2008 atola insight Fedir Nepyivoda 2 comments
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 releases
We 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.
June 4th, 2008 atola insight Dmitry Postrigan 1 comment
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 the beta won’t be just a “preview” release, but a tool that’s really useful.
If you’d like to get your hands on the Atola Insight before everyone else, please contact Jesse Goldstein at jgoldstein@yec-usa.com for more information.
Wonder how the new Atola DiskSense looks like? Follow this link: http://atola.com/products/insight/disksense
April 12th, 2008 atola insight, data recovery, hard drives Dmitry Postrigan Comments Off
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 a time
Obviously, there has to be a convenient way of keeping proper records for each hard drive. Also, since most recoveries take more than just a couple of hours, the process of making notes becomes even more important.
Atola Insight solves the above mentioned issues once and for all.
Proper Case Management
Everything you do in Atola Insight gets logged into the database. Diagnostic results, SMART data, firmware modifications, even spin-up power consumption graphs are saved. Every action taken by an engineer and its result goes into the database; custom notes are supported.
Later on, when a data recovery engineer returns to that drive, Atola Insight automatically loads up the history and displays it on the main form of the application (dashboard). Database can be shared between numerous Atola Insight users; dedicated database server configuration is also supported.
Case Management finally allows data recovery engineers to concentrate on data recoveries instead of making notes.
March 27th, 2008 atola insight, data recovery, hard drives, hdd password Dmitry Postrigan no comments
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 these hard drives. In other words, we would be always 3-12 months “behind” the hard drive market. Maintaining the software this way is good for marketing reasons, it also simplifies research and development to a degree.
In Atola Insight, we use a better approach. When implementing firmware recovery and password removal algorithms, we try to make them as universal and intellectual as reasonably possible, thus making them able to recover and unlock all hard drives, including those that did not come out yet.
How is that possible?
Hard drive manufacturers do not change their vendor-specific command sets and firmware structures too often. On average, major changes are made once per 3-5 years, and minor changes occur once per 1-2 years. It just does not make sense for HDD manufacturers to make major changes frequently (it is an expensive and in some sense dangerous process). This allows us to create algorithms that “adapt” themselves to new hard drives as they come out, without the need for us to make any changes to Atola Insight. So, instead of “adding” new model numbers every now and then, we will be spending that precious time on improving a lot of other important things.
What does all this mean to the happy Atola Insight users? It means that Atola Insight supports all hard drives made within the last 5 years with exception of certain models. Basically, we will be publishing “unsupported yet” models rather than “supported models” (and that “unsupported yet” list will be very short). Also, in most cases, “Unsupported” hard drives can still be diagnosed and imaged with Atola Insight, so it won’t be “totally useless” until we release an update. We believe that our customers will gain maximum benefits from this approach.
SCSI/SAS/Fiber Channel hard drives
At this moment we do not have any firm plan regarding these hard drives. When we finish up all IDE, SATA and SSD hard drives, then we will think about these.
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