Software update: IsoBuster 4.5

Smart Projects has released IsoBuster version 4.5. This program specializes in reading bad or damaged CDs and DVDs, and in many cases can recover files that are no longer recognized by Windows. Another strong point of IsoBuster is that it can read almost any CD or DVD image format imaginable, including *.iso, *.bin, *.img, *.ccd, and *.nrg. The program is largely free, only a few advanced features are only accessible to paying users. Exactly what those are is up this page to find. Since version 3.0, the program can also handle all other internal and external storage media, such as hard drives, USB sticks and memory cards. The changelog for this release shows the following changes and improvements:

Changes / New:

• Ability to resume a scan for missing files and folders, if the content is still shown
• Ability to save scan results (as *.ibr files)
• Ability to load previous (*.ibr) scan results and resume the scan if so desired
• Ability to import XML formatted lists of files and folders (if you happen to know where the files are physically located on the medium)
• Support for more types of Philips HDD recorders (DVR-3500)
• Support for Brother typewriter *.256 floppy images that use a primitive FAT like file system
• Ability to extract search results (files and folders) but preserve their relative path instead of creating a flat list of all found files and folders

Improvements:

• Rewrote parts of the ISO9660 parsing to get rid of the annoying memory allocation warnings in case of extremely large buffer allocations
• Hide the annoying ‘out of spec’ errors for severe ISO9660 ‘out of spec’ situations by default
• ISO9660 Scan options now features showing both ‘soft’ and ‘severe’ ‘out of spec’ errors
• Support for NCR_DIAGS’ butchered ISO9660 version
• Support for ISO9660 implementations that are not 2048 bytes-per-sector based. They’re extremely rare but I managed to find an image file
• Various other ISO9660 (and its derivatives) related improvements
• when finding HDD / SSM / USB etc is not set in options and IsoBuster is not running elevated, the moment finding such devices is enabled, IsoBuster will ask to run elevated. The prompt asking to restart now allows to restart without saving current selection. This is so that once a normal user has gone through this, the application will not automatically want to elevate next time as well, because once elevated, changes in options are made for the elevated user and not for the normal user
• Recognize Amiga floppy images *.adf, *.adz, *.dms and *.fdi as 512-byte block disk images rather than CD images
• Support Image file extensions *.512, *.256 and *.128, which forces IsoBuster to treat the image file using that block size
• When opening a *.CDT, *.ISO or *.BIN image file, IsoBuster now first looks for a *.CUE file with the same name in the same folder, and if it exists IsoBuster opens the CUE instead
• Address input fields now also support notation x.. (aside from already supported 0x.. and ..h) to input hex data
• Implemented tag in the file export functionality to be able to show how many files+folders a folder contains
• Implemented tags , , in the file export functionality to be able to show properties/attributes that are language independent (YOUuniform)
• Revert to Lucida Console, for the mono-spaced font in Sector View, in the odd case that Courier is not installed (As seen with WinPE)
• Improved the breadcrumb GUI under certain borderline conditions, for instance under, but not limited to, Wine on Ubuntu etc.
• Plenty of other 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 GUI improvements

Fixes:

• Fixed bug that caused the (right mouse click invoked) Search dialog to always find all objects rather than the objects identifying with the requested search parameter (not the search control in top right corner)
• Fixed exception error that can happen when a CUE is paired with a file who’s size is not an exact multiple of the block size mentioned in the CUE
• Fixed it so that text file parsing also works on UCS-2 BE (UTF16 Big Endian (aka byte swapped / Motorola)) formatted data
• Fixed bug so that tags > and => are properly recognized
• Fixed exception error that could occur when the scan for missing files and folders was immediately aborted, even before actual reading started
• Fixed not finding all files and folders (depending from image to image) in an El Torito embedded FAT boot image
• Fixed HFS and MFS file and folder date and time stamps (Issue introduced in IsoBuster 4.3)