Forensic Data Recovery Tool

Atola Insight Forensic is a fast forensic imager with the capacity to perform 3 simultaneous imaging sessions on a wide range of media.

Forensic data recovery plays a crucial role in various fields, such as law enforcement, cybersecurity, and digital forensics. When it comes to recovering data from damaged or compromised storage devices, having reliable tools is essential. Atola Insight Forensic is one such tool that offers advanced capabilities and automation to ensure efficient data recovery processes.

Overview of the Atola Insight Forensic System

Atola Insight Forensic is a cutting-edge forensic imager designed to address the complex challenges of data recovery. It combines high-speed imaging capabilities with automated recovery functions, making it a powerful solution for professionals in the field. The tool boasts a user-friendly interface, providing a seamless experience for both experienced forensic experts and novice users.

Forensic Investigation

The development of Atola Insight Forensic involved a team of industry-renowned data recovery engineers working closely with law enforcement agencies and forensic experts from around the world. This collaborative effort ensures that the tool meets the stringent requirements of forensic investigations while incorporating the latest technological advancements.

Understanding the Components of Atola Insight Forensic System

The Atola Insight Forensic system consists of three main components:

1. Forensic imaging software: This software runs on a Windows PC and forms the backbone of the data recovery process. It provides a comprehensive suite of tools and features to facilitate efficient forensic analysis and recovery.
2. DiskSense 2 hardware unit: Released in July 2021, the DiskSense 2 hardware unit is a crucial component of the system. It offers high-performance capabilities and enables seamless communication between the software and the storage devices.
3. Hardware extensions (optional): Atola Insight Forensic supports optional hardware extensions, such as SAS, Apple PCIe (2013 - recent models), NVMe, and M.2 PCIe SSDs. These extensions expand the range of supported storage devices, ensuring versatility in forensic investigations.

Warranty and Software Updates

Atola stands behind its product and offers a lifetime warranty for the DiskSense 2 hardware unit as long as your subscription is active. This warranty provides peace of mind, knowing that your hardware investment is protected. Additionally, the subscription includes 2-3 software updates per year, ensuring that you have access to the latest features and improvements.

Parallel Forensic Imaging Capability

Atola Insight Forensic is equipped with a server-grade motherboard and CPU, enabling it to sustain multiple imaging sessions at the top native speeds of the evidence drives, regardless of their condition. The tool's parallel imaging capability offers the following benefits:

1. 3 simultaneous imaging sessions: Atola Insight Forensic can handle up to three imaging sessions simultaneously, saving time and increasing efficiency.
2. Multi-tasking: The tool allows for concurrent operations, enabling users to perform multiple tasks without compromising performance.
3. High-speed imaging session: With a speed of up to 500 MB/s, Atola Insight Forensic ensures swift imaging even for large storage devices.
4. Support for various drive types: The tool supports SATA, IDE, and USB drives out of the box. With optional hardware extensions, it can also handle SAS, Apple PCIe, NVMe, and M.2 PCIe SSDs.
5. Built-in hardware write blocker: Atola Insight Forensic includes a built-in hardware write blocker for all source ports, ensuring data integrity and preventing accidental modification.

Support for Damaged Drives

How Atola Insight handles damaged media

Atola Insight Forensic is designed with advanced features that specifically cater to damaged drives. It has the ability to perform complex yet highly automated data recovery functions on failing storage devices. This is achieved through its sophisticated software that is wrapped in a simple and effective user interface.

In situations where other imagers stall or abort on media errors, Atola Insight Forensic can continue to acquire a usable image. This is made possible by its multi-pass imaging feature, which allows it to make several passes over the damaged areas of the drive, attempting to read data with each pass. This process continues until all recoverable data has been read.

Additionally, Atola Insight Forensic has a feature for automated imaging of freezing media. This is particularly useful in cases where the drive becomes unresponsive or "freezes" due to damage. The system is able to manage these situations and continue the imaging process, ensuring that no recoverable data is lost.

Types of Damage Supported

• Atola Insight Forensic supports a wide range of damage types. This includes physical damage such as degraded or damaged heads and scratches on platters. These are common issues in hard drives that have been subjected to harsh conditions or improper handling.
• Logical errors are also supported by Atola Insight Forensic. These are issues that occur in the software part of the drive, such as corruption in the file system or the partition table.
• The system is also capable of handling drives that freeze, which is often a symptom of a failing drive. Old drives with a worn-out magnetic layer, which can cause data reading issues, are also supported.
• In summary, Atola Insight Forensic provides comprehensive support for damaged drives, making it a powerful tool in the field of forensic data recovery. Its ability to handle a wide range of damage types and its advanced features for dealing with damaged media set it apart in the industry.

Forensic Tools in Atola Insight

Atola Insight Forensic offers a comprehensive set of forensic tools that assist in the data recovery process and aid forensic experts in their investigations. These tools include:

• In-depth automated drive diagnostics: The tool automatically performs detailed diagnostics of the drive, evaluating its health and identifying specific problems. This assessment helps users make informed decisions when proceeding with the imaging process.
• Multi-pass imaging of damaged drives: Atola Insight Forensic utilizes a multi-pass imaging technique for damaged drives, ensuring that all recoverable data fragments are captured. This approach increases the chances of successful recovery and ensures a forensically sound data acquisition.
• Automated imaging of freezing media: The tool has specialized functions for imaging drives that suffer from freezing issues. By automating the imaging process for such media, Atola Insight Forensic simplifies the recovery procedure and minimizes the risk of further damage.
• Bad sector recovery: Atola Insight Forensic employs advanced algorithms to recover data from drives with bad sectors. This feature increases the chances of successful recovery, even from media with physical or logical damage.
• Segmented hashing for image verification: To ensure data integrity and authenticity, the tool performs segmented hashing,g which allows users to verify the integrity of the acquired images. Hash algorithms such as MD5, SHA1, SHA224, SHA256, SHA384, and SHA512 are supported.
• HDD current monitoring: Atola Insight Forensic continuously monitors the current usage of the hard disk drives during the imaging process. This monitoring helps identify potential issues and provides valuable diagnostic information for ongoing analysis.

Forensic Feature Set

Atola Insight Forensic offers a comprehensive set of low-level forensic features that are invaluable for data recovery specialists. These features include:

1. Unknown ATA password extraction: The tool can extract unknown ATA passwords from hard drives, providing access to protected data. This capability is particularly useful in investigations where password-protected drives are encountered.
2. Locate sectors: Atola Insight Forensic enables users to locate sectors and determine which files and partitions they belong to on a specified drive. This feature aids in the identification and analysis of specific data fragments.
3. On-the-fly sector-level Artifact finder: Atola Insight Forensic incorporates an Artifact finder powered by Intel Hyperscan engine. This advanced feature allows users to search for forensic artifacts at the sector level during the imaging process, enhancing the efficiency and accuracy of investigations.
4. Hash calculation: The tool supports various hash calculation algorithms, including MD5, SHA1, SHA224, SHA256, SHA384, and SHA512. These algorithms enable the calculation of hash values for acquired images, providing a means of verifying their integrity and authenticity.
5. Wiping methods: Atola Insight Forensic includes various wiping methods, such as DoD 5220.22-M, Secure Erase, NIST 800-88, and Pattern Erase. These methods allow users to securely erase sensitive data from drives, ensuring data privacy and compliance with industry standards.
6. Forensic file recovery: Atola Insight Forensic supports the recovery of files from various file systems, including NTFS, APFS (with encrypted volumes), XFS, ext4/3/2, ExFAT, HFS/HFS+, FAT32, and FAT16. This feature enables the extraction of valuable evidence from different types of storage media.
7. Case management system: Atola Insight Forensic includes a comprehensive case management system that automatically generates detailed reports. This system helps forensic experts organize and document their investigations, ensuring a systematic and organized approach to data recovery.
8. Comparison of drives or images: The tool allows for the comparison of one drive against three drives or images. This feature facilitates data analysis and enables the identification of discrepancies or similarities between multiple sources.
9. Detection and lifting of HPA and DCO restricted areas: Atola Insight Forensic detects and lifts hidden areas, such as Host Protected Areas (HPA) and Device Configuration Overlay (DCO). This capability ensures that no restricted areas are overlooked during the imaging process, providing a comprehensive view of the storage media.
10. SSD Trim: Atola Insight Forensic supports the Trim command for SSDs, which helps maintain the performance and lifespan of solid-state drives. This feature ensures that the tool can handle modern storage technologies effectively.

Unique Features of Atola Insight Forensic

Among the array of forensic hardware tools available, Atola Insight Forensic stands out with its unique features that offer added capabilities to forensic experts:

1. Unknown ATA password removal: Atola Insight Forensic is the only forensic hardware tool in the world that can remove unknown ATA passwords from hard drives. This feature provides access to password-protected data, facilitating investigations where password recovery is necessary.
2. Locate sectors: The ability to locate sectors and identify the corresponding files and partitions sets Atola Insight Forensic apart from other tools. This feature streamlines the analysis process by providing quick access to specific data fragments.
3. Artifact search during imaging: Atola Insight Forensic incorporates an advanced Artifact search functionality that operates during the imaging process. This unique feature allows for real-time identification of forensic artifacts, optimizing the efficiency and effectiveness of investigations.

Additional Features

In addition to its core forensic capabilities, Atola Insight Forensic offers various features that assist in preparing drives for image acquisition, analysis, testing, and other specific tasks. These features ensure a comprehensive workflow and address the diverse requirements of forensic experts.

Workflow of the Atola Insight Forensic

The workflow consists of several key steps to ensure efficient data recovery and analysis:

• Drive diagnostics: Atola Insight Forensic excels in automatic and accurate drive diagnostics. It assesses the health of the drive's PCB, heads, media surface, firmware, and partitions. This evaluation helps users understand the condition of the drive and make informed decisions regarding the imaging process.
• ATA password removal: With just a single click, Atola Insight Forensic can automatically remove ATA passwords from hard drives in as little as 2 minutes. The extracted password is displayed whenever possible, providing immediate access to password-protected data.
• Evidence drive imaging: Atola Insight Forensic ensures the thorough acquisition of data from evidence drives. The imaging system allows for complete customization of the imaging process to handle damaged or unstable media. Selective head imaging enables an individualized approach based on the status of specific heads, as identified during diagnostics. The imaging system also performs multi-threaded sector-level analysis during the acquisition process, including artifact search, file signature detection, and entropy calculation.
• Forensic file recovery: Atola Insight Forensic integrates an intuitive and effective file recovery module. This module seamlessly combines with the imaging functionality and the Case Management system, providing a comprehensive solution for retrieving data from various file systems. Sector-level analysis, along with Artifact Finder and Locate Sectors features, ensures the identification of forensic artifacts in unallocated and hidden spaces that might otherwise be missed.

Conclusion

Atola Insight Forensic is a powerful and reliable forensic data recovery tool that offers advanced capabilities to address the challenges of data recovery from damaged or compromised storage devices. Developed by a team of industry experts and supported by law enforcement agencies and forensic professionals worldwide, Atola Insight Forensic provides a comprehensive suite of features, a user-friendly interface, and unique functionalities, making it an indispensable tool for forensic investigations.