Disk Drill 2.0 Release Notes: What’s New In Version 2.0?

Disk Drill 2.0 is no longer the latest release, version 2.1 is out, and probably more updates are already available. Stay tuned.

We are so excited to announce the release of Disk Drill 2.0. This is a major upgrade with a whole new UI, significant performance improvements and cool new features.

Disk Drill Basic remains free for all users, while users of the PRO, Expert and Enterprise editions will be eligible for a discounted upgrade. All those who purchased their license after March 24, 2013 will receive a free upgrade. Check your email for our upgrade announcement or visit www.cleverfiles.com/getdd2. Note that upgrading will disable your old license of Disk Drill, and your copy of Disk Drill will revert to the Basic edition until you activate your new license code. Disk Drill was already updated to version 2.0.356, which is a minor release to the new major version.

Here’s an overview of the major new features and improvements:

What’s New

• Completely Redesigned UI: Disk Drill’s user interface has been totally streamlined. One universal “Recover” button allows for one-click recovery. Experienced users will still find all their favorite features and new users will find the recovery process much simpler.
• HFS+ Catalog File Rebuild: The Rebuild function attempts to rebuild the catalogs of HFS+ partitions that won’t mount correctly. Disk Drill uses the existing partition header to locate the B-tree catalog of the HFS+ partition and optimizes it by rebuilding its B-tree structure. The newly rebuilt directory is mounted as a virtual Disk Image with all the original files and folders that can be recovered.
• Universal Partition Search: This function allows you to recover partitions on HFS+, FAT and NTFS volumes. It works on a disk level, and treats the disk as binary entity, quickly scanning the disk for signatures of known partition headers. Any found partition is mounted as a virtual Disk Image and can then be scanned for all original files and folders.
• Scan for Lost HFS+ Partition: This method finds and recovers HFS+ partitions on your Mac that have been reformatted. It scans a partition for the backup copy of the HFS+ partition header. It then uses the backup copy to attempt to recover the previous data structures. Any found partition is mounted as a virtual Disk Image and can then be scanned for all original files and folders.
• Mount Scanning Results As Disk: Users of registered versions of Disk Drill will be able to mount their scan results as a disk and preview them in Finder, using native applications. No more having to use the QuickLook preview function.
• S.M.A.R.T. Monitoring for External Disks: Disk Drill can now monitor the disk health of external drives through the use of a third-party app.
• Export Forensics Data: Technical information about the physical sectors and logical sizes of disks can now be exported in a DFXML format for forensic examination.
• Remount Partitions As Read-Only: Non-system partitions can be remounted in read-only mode to prevent other apps and system processes from changing their contents while scanning is in progress.
• Free Space Displayed: You can now quickly see exactly how much free space you have on each disk and partition. A rectangular icon below each volume name visualizes free space (green = lots of free space, blue = about 50% free, and red = minimal free space) The numbers next to the icon state the exact amounts of total/free space.

What’s Improved

• Better File Dating: Disk Drill now keeps the original creation date when found items are recovered.
• Better Deep Scan File Naming: Available meta-data inside of recovered files is processed so that EXIF-data and image resolution can be used to assign lost names to recovered files.
• More Protection Database Details: More details are provided regarding the how large the databases are for Recovery Vault and Guaranteed Recovery.
• Improved Protection Status: Enabling Recovery Vault on large volumes can take significant time; now the exact protection status is displayed in a message on the status bar.
• Guaranteed Recovery Optimizations: New database optimizations prevent orphaned files from appearing after system crashes, thus preventing unreasonable increases in database size.
• Better Filtering: The algorithms for filtering out hidden and system files in the scanning results have been improved.
• Optimized Scanning Results: The scanning results view now includes more information and the results can be viewed, scrolled and sorted much more quickly.
• Faster Previews: Previews of recoverable files now appear more quickly.
• Better Detection of Lost Partitions: Disk Drill is now better at detecting corrupted lost partitions during scanning.
• Easier Editing of Bad Blocks: Bad blocks ranges detected by Disk Drill on a disk are now easier to edit.
• Dialog Boxes Automatically Close: The “Get Info” (for disks and partitions) and “Specify bad blocks” dialogs automatically close when scanning starts.
• Improved Zoom: Using the zoom window button no longer hides part of the interface.
• Recovery Vault Issues Resolved: Several issues were fixed relating to updating Disk Drill while the Recovery Vault daemon was active in the background.

Why wait any longer? Grab the update now!