109 replies to this topic

[Olof Lagerkvist]

Rawcopy 1.3.2.

• Change behaviour when output device/file cannot be opened with the OPEN_ALWAYS flag. Now, in case of failure, it falls back to trying OPEN_EXISTING instead, which should make it possible to write raw blocks to disk devices even on "modern" versions of Windows.

[Olof Lagerkvist]

Release 0.3.0a of Stream Archiver, StrArc.

• Corrected a problem that caused extraction to stop on files with alternate data streams.

[Olof Lagerkvist]

Release 1.8.0 of ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver

• "Emergency remove" option in Control Panel applet. Similar to -R on command line.
• Command line tool could get stuck in endless loop when error occurred when attempting to load hung driver. There are now a few further protections to avoid this.
• Temporary drive letter assignment during formatting from command line tool. This will hopefully fix the problem with formatting wrong drive when drive letter is already defined by an already existing other device. It also means that it will be possible to format new virtual disks with no assigned drive letters, as long as a temporary drive letter could be assigned during format operation.
• A minor mistake in imdisk.h, about ImDiskOpenDeviceByNumber: the description speaks of a "FileName" argument instead of "DeviceNumber".
• Byte-swap feature. A new command line option to instruct driver to byte-swap all I/O buffers. This is useful when recovering files from harddisks from some embedded devices or similar that store data in reverse byte order.
• Setup helper applications without crtdll.dll dependencies. This makes it easier to install on Windows Server Core editions where 32 bit crtdll.dll is not included.

[Olof Lagerkvist]

Release 1.8.2 of ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver

 

This release contains mostly low-level driver related changes, fixes and improvements.

• New command line switch -P that can be used with -a to persist settings for creating a virtual disk in registry, or with -d to remove such settings for an existing virtual disk. Only a few, rather basic, settings could be saved in this way. Settings for formatting or similar that requires interaction with other applications are not possible to save with this new -P switch.
• AWEAlloc driver: Protection against possible data corruption when multiple I/O requests are handled simultaneously. Not necessary when used with ImDisk, but could add some extra protection when awealloc is used from other applications or drivers.
• ImageOffset REG_QWORD registry setting, to specify offset within image file. Implemented primarily to make it possible to save -b switch settings in registry.
• Corrected some calls to IoCallDriver to make sure that not the wrong level driver is called in the device stack used for proxy communication. No problems have been reported because of this, though, but this correction makes sure that proxy communication works correctly even if filter drivers are loaded for the communication device.
• Cache latest I/O block in the same way as in Arsenal Image Mounter, to be returned directly in dispatch routine. This could improve performance in cases where applications or filesystem drivers frequently access the same areas on the virtual disk.
• AWEAlloc driver: Support for automatically expanding the in-memory "file" when writing beyond EOF.
• Support for passing through IOCTL/FSCTL requests through ImDisk driver down to the image file. Could be useful to send direct filesystem control commands directly to the driver that handles the underlying image file.

[Olof Lagerkvist]

Release 1.8.3 of ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver

◾Fixed a bug in dispatching I/O flush requests, which caused certain database engines such as SQLite to fail. This caused for example cache and e-mail storage errors in Mozilla-based browsers.

[Olof Lagerkvist]

Relase 1.8.4 of ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver

◦ Fixed a bug in dispatching I/O flush requests, which could cause blue-screens under certain circumstances.

[Olof Lagerkvist]

Release 0.3.0c of Stream Archiver, StrArc.
◾Corrected a problem that caused files with more than one alternate data stream not to be correctly extracted.

Link to latest 32 bit version: http://ltr-data.se/files/strarc.zip
Link to latest 64 bit version: http://ltr-data.se/f...64/strarc64.zip

[Olof Lagerkvist]

Release 1.8.5 of ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver.

• Update/install scripts now make sure to kill any existing helper service process before updating any files. Hopefully this solves most of the cases where reboot have been needed after uninstall/upgrade.
• API library change. When IMDISK_API_NO_BROADCAST_NOTIFY is active, create and remove routines now pass the DDD_NO_BROADCAST_SYSTEM flag to DefineDosDevice (on Windows 2000 or later).
• Fixed some typos in help texts. Thanks to "v77".
• Kernel driver change. Device threads now use NtReadFile/NtWriteFile instead of ZwReadFile/ZwWriteFile when reading and writing image files directly. This change is to improve performance and reduce risks for resource deadlocks in filesystem drivers.

[Olof Lagerkvist]

New release of ImDisk .NET library and DiscUtilsDevio.exe.
 
http://ltr-data.se/files/ImDiskNet.7z

There was an issue in DiscUtils.dll that caused ImDisk to use the wrong size for GPT partitions. More about that problem and solution here:
https://discutils.co...m/workitem/5279

A new, corrected version of DiscUtils.dll is now included in ImDiskNet.7z.

[Olof Lagerkvist]

Arsenal Image Mounter - Release 1.0.016.0

• API library and MountTool: Modern versions of libewf.dll support a new file format where file sequence is .ex01, .ex02 etc. This is now supported by API library and MountTool.
• Kernel driver: Device threads now use NtReadFile/NtWriteFile instead of ZwReadFile/ZwWriteFile when reading and writing image files directly. This change is to improve performance and reduce risks for resource deadlocks in filesystem drivers.
• Kernel driver: When mounting image files directly in driver, the size of underlying image file is now queried in different way depending on whether the image file is an actual image file, or a lower level device. For instance, this makes it possible to let Arsenal Image Mounter mount an existing USB disk drive (\\.\PhysicalDriveN objects) as a virtual hard disk drive to support partitioning and similar hard disk specific features.

The new Mount Tool does not automatically upgrade the driver to this new version. If you already have the old driver installed and wish to use any features in the new version, you need to either run one of the driver install applications separately, or remove the old version from Device Manager before starting Mount Tool.

 

[Olof Lagerkvist]

Arsenal Image Mounter - Release 1.0.019

• Write-temporary mode (also known as "write-overlay") is now supported for most virtual disk formats mounted through DiscUtils.dll as well as the existing support through libewf.dll. The API needed to change somewhat to make this possible, so existing application that uses this API likely need to modify code that creates new virtual disks.
• The driver now supports emulating removable disk devices that can be removed using right-click/eject in for example Disk Management.
• The routine that scans for new disks after creating a new disk device is now much faster, more efficient and should have less compatibility problems.
• The driver now supports directly mounting an existing "PhysicalDrive" object as a new virtual SCSI disk. This makes it possible to emulate a full partitionable disk using a USB thumb drive. Useful for example to access partitions other than the first one on a USB thumb drive.
• Mounting of images using libewf.dll now supports the new .ex01 formats as well as old .e01 formats.
• Included newer version of DiscUtils.dll with some fixes and improvements for some virtual disk formats.

Mount Tool now automatically asks you to upgrade to latest driver or if you want to continue using an existing old driver, if it is API compatible with this version. There is also now better API support for comparing running and installable driver versions and to upgrade if necessary.

 

Source/binary repository: https://github.com/A...l-Image-Mounter

Self-contained Mount Tool GUI application with included driver installer (requires .NET 4.0): https://github.com/A...ol.exe?raw=true

[Olof Lagerkvist]

-- Release 0.3.0f of Stream Archiver, StrArc.

• Bugfix: Compression attribute was not restored for directories, only for files. Thanks to Alexander Steinbrecher for reporting this bug.

 

-- Release 1.9.0 of ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver.

• AWEAlloc
  • "Error" event log records changed severity level to "Information".
  • Possible performance reducing code path corrected in AWEAlloc. Page mapping function had a local unwind from exception protection code. Some tests show that AWEAlloc memory disk access performance has increased by around 4-5 %.
• ImDisk virtual disk objects now support ZwQueryInformationFile/FileStandardInformation to query size as file size.
• devio.exe 3.03.
  • Supports --novhd switch to disable dynamic vhd file detection.
  • Safer detection of dynamic vhd format (no longer mistakes differencing format for dynamic).
• ImDisk "raw" (non-disk) mode now supports file pointer requests to emulate one single file volume.
• Added a few more security checks to various function calls in ImDisk and AWEAlloc.
• ImDisk now ignores any errors when attempting to read volume boot record to auto-detect geometry parameters.
• ImDisk source code: Cleaned up annotations and debug asserts.
• ImDisk API: New API functions for manually sending shell notifications for arrived or removed drive letters.
• ImDisk, fixed bug: Notifications on drive removal did not remove MountPoints/MountPoints2 registry keys.
• Fixed missing function exports in "core version" of imdisk.cpl.

[Olof Lagerkvist]

-- Bugfix release 1.9.1 of ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver.

• There was a problem related to drive letters when mounting drives in Control Panel applet in 32 bit version of ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver 1.9.0. Thanks to v77 for reporting this bug.

[Olof Lagerkvist]

-- Bugfix release 1.9.2 of ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver.

• Data corruption could occur when loading large disk images into virtual memory on Windows XP and older Windows versions. Thanks to v77 for reporting this bug.

[Olof Lagerkvist]

-- Arsenal Image Mounter 1.0.021 - Driver 1.0.5.014

 

• Driver caused blue-screen crash when virtual SCSI port device was disabled or uninstalled through Device Manager while virtual disk drives were still mounted. This problem has now been corrected.
• Driver optimization: Pool memory usage was very high when loading disk image contents into virtual memory, which could potentially cause various problems with other drivers and applications meanwhile. Rewrote image file reading process completely. This is essentially same code fixed as in ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver version 1.9.2.
• The driver now responds with SRB_STATUS_BUSY instead of SRB_STATUS_NOT_POWERED while a newly mounted virtual disk drive is becoming ready. This should make drive mounting faster and more reliable.

 

https://github.com/A...l-Image-Mounter

[Olof Lagerkvist]

-- Devio 3.04

 

It is now possible to use devio.exe to directly share physical memory from a server for use with for example ImDisk on another computer. With latest devio.exe you can share 300 MB physical memory:

devio 9000 \\?\awealloc 300M

(It is possible to load image files with syntax like \\?\awealloc\??\C:\path\image.img and similar)

 

And then on a client computer:

imdisk -a -t proxy -o ip -f serverip:9000 -m #: -p "/fs:ntfs /q /y /v:remoteram"

 

Made after an idea from an ImDisk user.

 

Latest 32-bit devio.exe: http://ltr-data.se/files/devio.exe

Latest 64-bit devio.exe: http://ltr-data.se/f...win64/devio.exe

 

[Olof Lagerkvist]

• ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver 1.9.3.
  • Uninstall script now shows Control Panel applet if there are any existing drives that can be removed by user. If devices exist that are already in the process of being removed, uninstall carries on and may ask for reboot at the end.
  • Corrected bug in command line tool. The -m #: syntax did not work if it appeared before -a on the command line.
  • Fixed bug that could cause image file saving to fail. This happened when dismounting a memory backed disk from Explorer context menu and this disk had been created without using an image file.
  • Symbolic links are now created for each ImDisk device. Device number 0 can be opened using path \\?\ImDisk0 from a Win32 application.
• Modified the dosdev tool so that it returns errorlevel other than zero if an error occurs.

[Olof Lagerkvist]

ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver 1.9.4.

• Fixed bug in awealloc driver that appeared in version 1.9.3. This bug made it impossible to use physical RAM as storage for virtual disks.

[Olof Lagerkvist]

Beta version 2.0.0 of ImDisk, which among many small changes and fixes includes:

• Rewritten I/O request logic to allow fully parallel I/O. This is by default only used when communicating with AWEAlloc driver for physical memory virtual disks, but can be turned on for any virtual disks backed by an image file or another kernel level driver, provided that the underlying driver supports it. Use -o par command line option to turn on this feature. This change should give better physical RAM disk performance. Se comparing screenshots below. It should also give better performance for instance when using ImDisk to mount offsets of \\?\PhysicalDrive objects as virtual disks.
• AWEAlloc driver rewritten to support multiple requests simultaneously, which means that ImDisk no longer need to queue requests and switch to a worker thread to complete requests to a physical memory RAM disk.
• Support for TRIM requests sent from filesystem drivers on Windows 7 and later. Forwarded as either file level TRIM requests to image file or in case image file is a sparse file, as "zero data" requests. TRIM requests can optionally also be forwarded to proxy applications if proxy application supports it. This should make it easier to develop proxy services that support freeing parts of a virtual disks that are no longer in use.
• Bugfix: Fixed problem which caused sparse files to sometimes be created as fully allocated files.
• Bugfix: Impossible to specify a device number when calling ImDiskCreateDeviceEx. Automatic device number was always used.

ImDisk version 1.9.4 with 100 MB physical memory ram disk and CrystalDiskMark:



ImDisk version 2.0.0, same test and same hardware:



Download ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver beta 2.0.0 here:
http://ltr-data.se/f...kinst_2.0.0.exe
Source: http://ltr-data.se/f...source_2.0.0.7z

[Olof Lagerkvist]

ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver 2.0.1. Finalized version of earlier beta, with these additions/changes.

• Fixed issue with using directories as mount point.
• Separate "zero range" and "unmap range" requests sent to proxy, when proxy indicates support for such requests.

 

Latest version 2.0.1: http://www.ltr-data..../imdiskinst.exe

Latest source: http://www.ltr-data....mdisk_source.7z

.NET/COM library binaries: http://www.ltr-data....es/ImDiskNet.7z

 

The previous beta version 2.0.0 is still available here: http://ltr-data.se/f...kinst_2.0.0.exe

The previous stable version 1.9.4 is still available here: http://ltr-data.se/f...kinst_1.9.4.exe

[Olof Lagerkvist]

ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver 2.0.2.

• Fixed issue with saving virtual disk as image file from Control Panel applet or Explorer context menu.
• New command line option -o shared that forces driver to open images in shared write mode.

[Olof Lagerkvist]

ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver 2.0.3.

• Fixed serious issue with wrong drive formatted by command line tool.

[Olof Lagerkvist]

ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver 2.0.4.

• Fixed problem that could cause formatting to fail in some cases.

[Olof Lagerkvist]

ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver 2.0.5.

• Device list in Control Panel applet did not correctly show memory backed virtual disk that had been initialized with an image file.
• Support for sending an image path (or any custom string) through to proxy server. Syntax is server:port://path where :port just like previously is optional and defaults to 9000. The //path part is sent through to server end as an IMDPROXY_REQ_CONNECT request and makes it possible for one proxy service listening to one single port to handle requests for many different images.

[Olof Lagerkvist]

ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver 2.0.6.

• Device list in Control Panel applet did not auto-refresh when new virtual disks where added or removed by other applications, such as command line tool. This has now been corrected and it should no longer be necessary to manually click refresh button in this case.

Release 0.3.0h of Stream Archiver, StrArc.

• Restoring files and directories sometimes failed with "Access denied" error messages, particularly to external drives, attached virtual disks and similar. This should now be corrected.