IsoBuster is intended to rescue files lost due to multiple causes, like accidental deletion, corrupted partition and virus attacks. The program supports practically any type of storage device, including optical discs, memory cards, USB drives and hard disks. Likewise, it can open an impressive list of image file extensions. It is good news that it supports not only Windows file systems (FAT and NTFS) but others as well.
The program does an excellent job of extracting contents from optical discs that are not in an optimum state. This includes playing audio from damaged analog CDs. Moreover, it has the advantage of supporting managed image files, which eliminates the necessity of extracting all the contents of a disc. The tool can also perform surface scans and mark defective blocks, which can later be filled manually.
All in all, IsoBuster provides an effective way to recover lost data irrespective of the original storage device and file system. In this respect, the program is more powerful than others. In my opinion, its main weakness is still its interface, which makes it inappropriate for inexperienced users. Moreover, I think that the tool would be complete if it allowed backing up partitions as ISO files, something that is possible with other data recoverers. The product is shareware and can be evaluated at no cost. However, some of its features are restricted, such as recovering files and viewing a sector.
v4.7 [Dec 17, 2020]
Changes / New:
- Implemented an option to not automatically explore a drive for partitions and file systems, to avoid reading until the operator choses so (Ignored on image files and needs a Professional license).
- Retries can be reduced to 0 retries (including the block per block retries).
- Added detection of encrypted partitions and tracks based on the encryption signatures for: WinMagic SecureDoc Full Disk Encryption, BitLocker, Apple File Vault, Check Point Full Disk Encryption, GuardianEdge Encryption Plus/Anywhere/Hard Disk Encryption and Symantec Endpoint Encryption, McAfee Safeboot/Endpoint Encryption, Sophos Safeguard Enterprise and Safeguard Easy, Symantec PGP Whole Disk Encryption (an encrypted partition or session/track is shown with a green color - it is also indicative for why no files and folders were found for such a partition or session/track).
- Ability to Export and Import report templates (*.ibtmpl) (via right mouse click, see under the actual reporting).
- Full Padus DiscJuggler *.cdi image file support, including CD-Text, via the Padus pfctoc.dll that is installed together with this version of IsoBuster.
- Options / GUI / Shell option to choose your own 'Investigate with IsoBuster' text on right mouse clicking a CD/DVD drive in Windows Explorer.
- Ability to Scan for missing files and folders but look for *.VOB Video only, via right mouse click Shift Ctrl.
- Support for the PS2 Memory Card file system.
- Support for the PSX Memory Card file system.
- Support for the Dreamcast Memory Card file system.
- Detect Xbox formatted Hard Disks and support Xbox native partitioning schemes to reach its file systems and stored data.
- Detect PS2 formatted Hard Disks and support its native APA partitioning scheme to reach its file systems and stored data.
- Detect the PS2 PFS file system.
- Support for CD *.vcd image files.
- Support for raw CD *.2056, *.2324, *.2332, *.2336, *.2352, *.2368, *.2448 image files.
- Support for GD-ROM *.gdi image files.
- Support for various other block device image files: *.xgd, *.apa, *.ps2, *.vm2; *.vmc, *.saveram, *.ddf, *.gme, *.mcd, *.mci, *.ps, *.psm, *.srm, *.vgs, *.vmp, *.vm1, *.mcr, *.dcm, *.vmu, *.hfv, *.528.
Improvements:
- Greatly improved Prassi PrimoDVD / Sonic / Roxio *.gi image file support by finding internal sections and tracks.
- Default RAW extracted CD Images now always get extension *.bin (instead of *.iso).
- Improved support for 512 16 ECC bytes per block Image files.
- Changed the default optical disc retry counts from Per-Range: 2 and Per-Block: 3 to Per-Range: 1 and Per-Block: 2.
- Improved the ability to clone an image with different internal blocksize than the device's blocksize.
- Small improvement in Reiser file system detection.
- Improvements detecting Xbox' FATX.
- Show PS2 APA Attributes/Resources.
- Ability to recognize and list ISO images in the application area of a PS2/APA partition.
- Check the third track of a GD-ROM for the ISO9660 file system.
- Improvement to search functionality and particularly searching inside (what I call) Embedded objects (for instance sub-partitions in partitions).
- Show files in the breadcrumb control when their content is shown (streams, extents etc).
- Show 'state icons' in the breadcrumb control when 'special' object members are shown, for instance streams, extents etc.
- Show wait cursor while loading (large) files into the EditWindow.
- Show Search results breadcrumb with the full system name where the search originated.
- Improved looking for a UDF 'VAT' in image files.
- Default, VOB files are not cut into smaller 1GB pieces anymore (everybody runs NTFS now that can deal with larger files).
- If all tracks of a session are detected as encrypted, the session is regarded encrypted as well.
- If all sessions of a CD/DVD are detected as encrypted, the disc is regarded encrypted as well.
- Work around a W10 issue (via the installation) that seems to elevate 'Investigate with IsoBuster' to the default setting sometimes.
- Before a device is automatically removed (e.g. disconnected or device electronics failure) IsoBuster asks to save the scan results.
- Custom file signature scanning now pre-processes the lines for much faster searching.
- A few demo Custom file signature scanning *.rules are now installed in the /Plugins/ folder, so that it's easier to understand, edit, test and use.
- Custom file signature scanning now also supports commands: \%, \i(), \e() and \c().
- Plenty of other improvements, quite a few 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 GUI improvements.
Fixes:
- Fixed it so that command line parameter /ef:sig works again (It looks like this was broken since v 3.6).
- Fixed exception error that could occur when one clicks the forward history button when there is nothing to show.
