IsoBuster 4.0 Beta Released!

I'm very happy to announce the Beta release of IsoBuster 4.0.

This new version opens the door to the future. A lot of underlying engine code has been improved and updated which results in faster and even more stable functionality.

On top of that there is improved and powerful search functionality and an updated GUI

I'm personally also very happy with the graphical representation of bad blocks vs good blocks. Specialists will appreciate the easy overview that aids a targeted recovery approach.

Here's a list of all the goodies:

Changes / New:

• Huge changes to the GUI to keep up with current and newer OS
• Added very powerful search functionality immediately accessible via the main window
• Added pre-defined search queries. For instance search for pictures, video etc.
• Detect whether drives are added or removed from the system and automatically update the drive selection combobox without affecting the currently selected drive or image file
• Automatic drive add or removal detection can be enabled / disabled in Options (On by default)
• Ability to show graphical represenation of good vs bad blocks on all objects, files, partitions, tracks etc via the Properties dialog
• Good vs bad blocks are also shown in the Managed Image File Manager [Professional license]. Here it is possible to select a block or zoom into the block and auto-fill the Address and Blocks' fields to easily define what blocks need to be re-read etc.
• Added easy history browsing via the breadcrumbs control

Improvements:

• Improved opening image files while another process (Refreshing) is ongoing
• Improved checking if a file is already opened, no matter what method is used to open the file
• A managed clone will detect when its target drive is connected to the system
• Avoid trying to read PathTable found ISO9660/Joliet folders without a size again and again in case of read errors
• Huge changes in the underlying GUI code/engine to be able to keep up with modern OS and prepare for the future
• Improved the search engine dramatically to be extremely powerful. Easily find fragmented files, extents, streams, etc. etc.
• Improved message boxes
• Improved breadcrumbs control so that is behaves similar than modern OS
• Improved image file (ISO, IMG, VDI, IBP/IBQ, ...) access and reading, for most type images files, so that it is a lot faster now
• Show Media in the breadcrumb bar when selecting a drive (or when starting up with a drive)
• Show NTFS File System Root properties
• Better filtering of illegal characters from devices names
• Choosing large fonts also auto-selects the use of larger icons
• Double clicking a Partition, Track or Session in ListView now also shows its children in ListView (except for Audio CDs)
• File systems are listed in ListView as well, when the track or partition in selected in the TreeView
• Easy way via ListView to start a scan for missing files and folders, when a partition without file systems is selected
• Ability to right mouse click and show a file's resource fork
• Updated file system icons
• Avoid excessive IBP updating, mainly when completing on demand
• Lots of improvements, changes and re-writes in the core code / engine, as this is a living project and to deal with the ever growing new functionality
• Various other, not listed, GUI improvements

Fixes:

• Do not allow to select a new device via the back and forward (history) buttons when critical GUI List/Tree Item processes are ongoing
• Fix it so that a check to see if a file contains video keeps returning consistent data after for instance Extract2Mpg has been chosen
• Fixed rare stack overflow when exploring NTFS, in case of many small nested folders
• Fix and return consistent data after an NTFS search for deleted files/folders when sorting is turned off entirely

FYI: This beta version works with a 3.x license. The final 4.0 version will require a new 4.x license

Please tell people about it, like it in FaceBook, share it via FaceBook or via Twitter, post it on forums etc. Stuff like that is really appreciated. Start with clicking the FaceBook "Like" button all the way below, in the bottom right corner.

Peter Van Hove,
Founder and CEO