Individual Computers is funding a 4-month research project with the university of applied sciences of Cologne under the supervision of Prof. Dr. H. Koch and Prof. Dr. E. Ehses. New algorithms for interpretation of magnetically recorded data that compensate for physical effects of media ageing are being developed.

The goal of the development is a software for the Catweasel Controller, which allows accessing disks at the lowest level.

The open-source software, which is developed on Windows, allows combining low-level codecs with filesystems on a graphical basis. This makes the software easy to use for beginners, and gives a wide variety of combinations and data manipulation possibilities for the experienced user. The fully documented plugin-system can be extended dynamically.

Plugins can be inserted at any stage of the signalling pathway. On the lowest level, errors of the media can be detected and corrected. On the highest level, files of operating systems and programs that are no longer supported can be converted to standard formats that allow easy import into popular office solutions.

Areas of application include forensic data recovery (securing evidence), archiving and restoring data to new, durable media, but also reading and writing disks of home computers, even if they have non-standard characteristics.

The software will be free. The first version will presumably be available for download in october 2003. The first screenshots can be seen here.