TaskForce Changelog

2020.7.1

New Features

RAID:

• Improved RAID autodetection. Fine-tuned algorithms will narrow the possible configurations down to a single variant more frequently
• When multiple RAID assumptions are suggested, they are listed in the order of probability
• New Error tag is displayed if read errors are encountered during RAID autodetection. The tag's tooltip shows read error count
• Improved handling of a damaged drive when one of RAID devices freezes while reading sectors
• Memory use optimized for RAID autodetection involving more than 8 devices
• Maximum number of autochecked configurations increased from 500,000 to 100,000,000
• RAID 5. Ability to add a Missing Device and start another RAID autodetection
• RAID 5 based on mdadm. Automatic addition of a Missing Device
• Summary hint with recommendations is shown if RAID autodetection failed to find the right RAID configuration

Network setup + Imaging to server:

• DFS (Distributed File System) supported
• Connect dialog allows specifying a full network folder path
• New network settings: DNS nameserver, Default gateway
• Ability to work in networks having SMBv2 strictly disabled

Bugfixes

Imaging:

• The following message was missing in the imaging log: Source device HPA was set to native max address until power cycle: 123,123,123
• Imaging could not be started if limiting the target device to source size by HPA failed
• Rare imaging interruption when attempting to start selective head imaging with some models of Toshiba drives
• Imaging (Hashing, Wiping, as well) could not be started against NetAPP SAS drives
• Disable read-look ahead setting was not working properly
• Resuming imaging for RAID wasn't possible after pausing imaging and changing the RAID configuration

Other fixes:

• RAID. Serial numbers of selected devices were not always entirely visible on RAID configuration page
• RAID. Add devices buttons and Remove device area missing when using screen tablet with 6+ devices selected
• Storage drive automounting now works in Target mode only. Previously, it was running for both Source and Target modes.
• Fixed a few minor issues with case reports created for RAID devices
• Case import completed report might have no detailed information inside

2020.7

New Features

RAID support:

• Autodetection of RAID configuration
• Convenient assembly with partition preview
• Supported RAID types: RAID 0, 1, 5 and JBOD
• Missing drive support in RAID 5
• Supported file systems for RAID autodetection: NTFS, ext4/3/2

Imaging:

• Imaging assembled RAID array or its individual partitions
• Add, change and delete passes of a paused imaging session
• E01 evidence number, investigator, description are added to the final imaging report
• Ability to restore image file to 4Kn drive
• Save report in the target folder option became enabled by default

Case management:

• SAVE TO button on Reports page. Allows to quickly save and export selected reports in a single ZIP file.
• Remote work folder. Performance optimization for cases when 15+ tasks are running simultaneously.
• Improved report search for non-English languages
• Ability to reindex currently selected Work Folder

Support of SAS drives with sector size above 4096 sectors

UI changes on the device selection panel

• Fast device actions: Power on/off, Reidentify, Unmount storage
• Device power indication

Home page. Specific port indicated for each device report

Bugfixes

• Imaging to E01 could not get started if source device’s serial number was longer than 50 characters
• Resuming imaging session could fail if target image folder is password-protected
• Out of memory error while importing large work folder package files
• Possible minor issues with segmented hashes after imaging paused and resumed
• Fixed HTML styling when a case report is opened outside TaskForce
• Seagate SSD 600 Pro drive was not detected in the device selection panel
• Incorrect values of Last open date in Cases page

2020.3.1

Changes

• Revamped Chinese texts
• Mistakes in Chinese and Japanese translations

2020.3

New Features

Imaging:

Segmented hashes – an alternative to linear hashing. It will come in handy when dealing with damaged drives or providing enhanced resiliency against data corruption.

Bugfixes

• TaskForce browser-cached data was not always refreshed after firmware update
• Target files with long Chinese/Japanese names could not be created
• Few minor issues when imaging into E01 files

2020.2

New Features

Imaging:

• E01 segmented files (E01, E02, etc) supported
• Web API, /start-image call. New targetFile parameter allowing to customize target image file name

Auto-mount of VeraCrypt-encrypted Storage when its diagnostics completes

Bugfixes

• Few minor issues when doing case import from Storage
• Cancel button was not working during case export

2020.1

New Features

Imaging:

• Create encrypted password-protected VeraCrypt volume on a target drive to store images
• Recent folder tiles in Device panel's File section to speed up target file location choice
• Optimization of TaskForce memory usage when imaging to E01
• Visual checkmarks in reports to compare hashes during and after imaging

Case management:

• Case export to a USB stick or any other Storage
• Case import from a USB stick or any other Storage
• Deletion of cases and reports

User experience improvements:

• Revamped UI across the whole interface
• File browser: faster folder opening, cleaner look & feel
• More accessible smartphone UI

Support of SAS drives with non-standard sector sizes: 520, 528, 4080 bytes, etc

Settings page shows MAC addresses of both TaskForce Ethernet ports

Web API, /check-task call:

• New query parameter - source. Example: /api/check-task?source=SATA5
• New result fields: source, completionDate

Manual is now built into TaskForce firmware

Bugfixes

Imaging:

• Issue mounting Oracle ZFS NAS to store image files
• It was impossible to select a network target folder with password-protected Guest account
• Small sector blocks were not visible in the imaging map progress bar

Other fixes:

• Possible E01 validation issue when selecting huge 10TB+ image
• Occasional error when formatting a target drive to Storage with exFAT
• FalseThe disk claims that it won't read multiple sectors at a time message in Diagnostics (rare case)
• Cancel button wasn't properly working during the operations:  Identifying device, Creating target file, Checking source device

2019.9

New Features

Imaging

• Express mode - a self-launching imaging mode. Plugging a source drive into port automatically starts imaging process
• Imaging by selected heads. Support for most of Seagate, WD, Hitachi, Toshiba models
• Suggestion to disable damaged/degraded heads when starting the first imaging session

Diagnostics

• Detection of degraded and damaged heads
• By-head speed graphs
• Showing SMART’s Power on Time in human-readable form

Storages

• Automounting of Storage drives
• Imaging into more than one E01/Raw file on Storage
• Save report in the target folder option supported
• Showing available space and image files Storage drive contains
• Stricter check and confirmation request when someone attempts to wipe Storage
• Open file selection dialog after one clicks Storage in the device selection panel
• Ability to resume imaging session to compressed E01 located on Storage

Drive identification is now 3-4 times faster when you open the device selection panel

Support of damaged USB flash drives which are in read-only mode

Improved recognition of vendor-specific SMART attributes

Bugfixes

Imaging

• It was impossible to resume imaging session after target device write error
• Errors when writing USB drives with a capacity above 2 TB
• SATA drive plugged into SAS port could get paused after source drive hung up
• Possible errors when imaging 4kN SAS drive to 4kN SATA drive
• Export of imaged sector list was failing when CSV file became larger than 5 MB
• Empty image file could be created when imaging fails to start
• Few corner-case issues when using reverse imaging passes

Other fixes

• File selection dialog was showing E01 image size instead of real file size
• Diagnostics. Last significant work time interval was not always correct
• False detection of DCO max address limitation in rare cases

2019.7

New Features

Introduction of simple Web API with 5 commands:

• /start-image – launches an imaging session
• /check-task – returns the status of an imaging task
• /scan-devices – find all source drives available for imaging
• /stop-task – stops imaging session
• /help – opens API documentation

New system setting: Store shared folder logins and passwords in TaskForce

Case ID is now displayed in the device selection window.

Bugfixes

• Target drive serial numbers were missing in imaging reports
• Restoring file image from password-protected network folder denied
• File selection window was too wide when open on mobile phone
• WrappedApiResultException when parsing partition with bad sectors

2019.4.1

Bugfixes

• Imaging to a large non-compressed E01 file located on a target device sometimes interrupted due to a write error
• Very rare internal out-of-memory error when working with E01 files on target device

2019.4

New Features

• Imaging
• Image files can be created on exFAT-formatted target drives
• Support of imaging to E01 compressed files
• Imaging to E01. Performance increase by 100%.
• Imaging. Performance enhancement for SAS ports: 100-200% increase depending on the combination of source and target types
• Support of remote work folder to store case data on a network server
• Cases. New option Set case details before task start
• Diagnostics. Drive temperature graph and drive working timespans
• Wiping. The speed of random and LBA pattern methods accelerated by 100%
• New method of TaskForce firmware update: from USB stick
• Japanese language support

Bugfixes

• E01 files. Partitions might not be found in other forensic tools (X-Ways, Encase)
• It was impossible to select an image file with “+” sign in its filename
• USB drives. Intermittent unsuccessful identification of certain USB drives
• INTEL SSDSC2KB240G7 solid-state drive model was not identifiable
• False Device isn't connected to TaskForce or is not responding message on certain enterprise SAS drives
• Diagnostics. Rare incorrect According to the status register, circuit board is malfunctioning message for drives on SAS ports
• Diagnostics. Estimated imaging time indication was missing for old drives with capacity below < 7 GB
• Diagnostics. Short circuit diagnosis could be missing when short circuit is detected.

2018.12

New Features

• NVMe support!
• Support of M.2, Thunderbolt, and Apple PCIe extension modules
• Imaging
• The option to image all sectors with data
  Supported file systems: NTFS, APFS, Ext 2/3/4, HFS, HFS+, ExFAT, FAT16, FAT32
• Unclip HPA until power cycle on source drives
• Pause and Resume features support for pre-hash and post-hash calculation during imaging session
• SAS port. Performance increase by 25%
• Improved imaging of damaged drives
• New setting Save report in the target folder when imaging to a file
• E01 metadata automatically filled with case ID, investigator, description from the case management system
• User interface
• Fully revamped UI with center-aligned pages
• Better UI version for smartphones
• Short values (1K, 1M, 1G, 1T) supported in all LBA text boxes
  Example: 3M will transform into 3,000,000
• 4K sector size support on SATA, SAS, USB drives
• Wiping. Added methods: NIST 800-88, DOD 5220, Random, LBA Number
• System menu. Added Release notes page and Toggle full screen feature

Bugfixes

• USB devices. On certain devices, bad sectors were detected but not reported in the logs
• Warning when opening E01 file in Encase created by Atola TaskForce
• HPA/DCO indication missing on SATA devices plugged to SAS ports
• Issues identifying drives in PUIS mode
• Unclip HPA/DCO not working on IDE drives
• Several translation inaccuracies in the Chinese version

2018.8

New Features

• Imaging
• Overall performance increase by 25% when imaging to network shared folders
• Imaging presets with export/import features
• Export of imaged/non-imaged/error sectors into a file
• Sparse file support when writing into target images
• Improved damaged drive support for disks that freeze in the course of imaging
• Option to automatically limit target drive capacity to match that of the source via HPA
• Hashing. 100% performance increase of double-hash (MD5+SHA1) calculation reaching 650 MB/s
• Case management
• Export of one or multiple cases into a file
• Import of cases from a file
• Navigation between reports via new arrow buttons in the bottom panel
• Improvement in printing of multiple reports
• Diagnostics. Improved Media Surface check for solid-state drives
• SAS drives. SMART support
• SATA drives. Added PHY link in the bottom panel
• E01 metadata is now automatically filled from the corresponding case

Bugfixes

• Imaging. Improved graph animation smoothness for large screen resolutions
• Imaging. After read error, error type was not showing in a corresponding log message
• Diagnostics. Removed incorrect error message for partitions larger than 8TB
• Issue when a task may not start when drive power is off
• E01 files. Invalid E01 metadata when non-Latin characters are used in Description and Investigator fields
• Issue with SATA drives in PUIS mode not getting identified in rare cases
• Multiple UI fixes

2018.1.3

New Features

• Imaging to password-protected servers and network folders
• Static IP mode for both 10Gbit Ethernet ports

2018.1.2

Chinese language support

2018.1.1

Bugfixes

• Diagnose. Error when scanning a partition of more than 2TB size
• Activation. Intermittent error during the first system activation
• Fixed other minor issues

2018.1

Initial release