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Export Files and Custom Content Images in FTK Imager – eDiscovery Best Practices

Over the past few weeks, we have talked about the benefits and capabilities of Forensic Toolkit (FTK) Imager from AccessData (and obtaining your own free copy), how to create a disk image and how to add evidence items with FTK Imager for the purpose of reviewing the contents of evidence items, such as physical drives or images that you’ve created.  This week, let’s discuss how to export files and how to create a custom content image of a targeted collection of files.

Sometimes, you don’t want to create an image of the entire drive; instead, you’d like to perform a targeted collection or export individual files to review them.  Let’s discuss how to do that.

Export Files

As we discussed last time, you can Add Evidence Item to add a single evidence item to the evidence tree.  You can select a Physical Drive or Logical Drive, an Image File to view an image file created before or Contents of a Folder, to look at a specific folder.  You can also Add All Attached Devices to add all of the attached physical and logical devices.  When you select one or more evidence items, the selected items will be displayed in the Evidence Tree on the left hand side; navigate to the folder you want and it will display the contents on the right hand side.

Select one or more files (use Ctrl+Click to select multiple files or Shift+Click to select a range of files), then right-click on one of the files to display a popup menu.

Select Export Files to export the selected files, then FTK Imager will prompt you for a folder where the files will be saved.  The files will be saved to that folder.  Exporting files can be useful to pull a copy of selected files out of a forensic image for review.

Create Custom Content Image

As you’ll notice in the previous section, when you display the popup menu, another choice is to Add to Custom Content Image (AD1).  This enables you to start building a targeted list of files to be included in a custom image – useful if you want a specific group of files and not everything on the evidence item.

Any files that you select will then be added to the Custom Content Sources pane in the lower left window.  Continue adding items by repeating this step until you’ve specified or selected all the evidence files you want to add to this Custom Content image.  You can also use the Edit button to open the Wild Card Options dialog and select all files that meet a certain criteria (e.g., “My Documents|*.doc” will collect all files with a .doc extension in any folder named My Documents).

Once you have built your desired list of files, you can then build your Custom Content Image.  Select Create Custom Content Image from the file menu.  You can then repeat the steps for the Create Image, Evidence Item Information, Select Image Destination, Drive/Image Verify Results and Image Summary forms as illustrated in our earlier post How to Create an Image Using FTK Imager.  The resulting image will have an AD1 extension.  Then, this image can be examined just like any other image.

For more information, go to the Help menu to access the User Guide in PDF format.

Next time, we will discuss how to Obtain Protected Files to collect a user’s account information and possible passwords to other files.

So, what do you think?  Have you used FTK Imager as a mechanism for eDiscovery collection?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Adding Evidence Items with FTK Imager – eDiscovery Best Practices

A couple of weeks ago, we talked about the benefits and capabilities of Forensic Toolkit (FTK) Imager, which is a computer forensics software application provided by AccessData, as well as how to download your own free copy.  Then, last week, we discussed how to create a disk image.  This week, let’s discuss how to add evidence items with FTK Imager for the purpose of reviewing the contents of evidence items, such as physical drives or images that you’ve created.

Adding Evidence Items Using FTK Imager

Last week, I created an image of one of my flash drives to illustrate the process of creating an image.  Let’s take a look at that image as an evidence item.

From the File menu, you can select Add Evidence Item to add a single evidence item to the evidence tree.  You can also select Add All Attached Devices to add all of the attached physical and logical devices (If no media is present in an attached device such as a CD- or DVD-ROM or a DVD-RW, the device is skipped).  In this case we’ll add a single evidence item.

Source Evidence Type: The first step is to identify the source type that you want to review.  You can select Physical Drive or Logical Drive (as we noted before, a physical device can contain more than one logical drive).  You can also select an Image File to view an image file you created before or Contents of a Folder, to look at a specific folder.  In this example, we’ll select Image File to view the image of the flash drive we created and locate the source path of the image file.

The evidence tree will then display the item – you can keep adding evidence items if you want to look at more than one at once.  The top node is the selected item, from which you can drill down to the contents of the item.  This includes partitions and unpartitioned space, folders from the root folder on down and unallocated space, which could contain recoverable data.  Looking at the “Blog Posts” folder, you see a list of files in the folder, along with file slack.  File slack is the space between the end of a file and the end of the disk cluster in which it is stored. It’s common because data rarely fills clusters exactly, and residual data occur when a smaller file is written into the same cluster as a previous larger file, leaving potentially meaningful data.

You’ll also notice that some of the files have an “X” on them – these are files that have been deleted, but not overwritten.  So, with FTK Imager, you can not only view active data, you can also view inactive data in deleted files, file slack or unallocated space!  When you click on a file, you can view the bit-by-bit contents of the file in the lower right window.  You can also right-click on one or more files (or even an entire folder) to display a pop-up menu to enable you to export a copy of the file(s) out and review them with the native software.  You can also Add to Custom Content Image to begin compiling a list of files to put into an image, enabling you to selectively include specific files (instead of all of the files from the device) into the image file you create.

Next time, we’ll discuss Add to Custom Content Image in more detail and discuss creating the custom content image of specific files you select.

For more information, go to the Help menu to access the User Guide in PDF format.

So, what do you think?  Have you used FTK Imager as a mechanism for eDiscovery collection?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Defendant Compelled by Court to Produce Metadata – eDiscovery Case Law

Remember when we talked about the issue of metadata spoliation resulting from “drag and drop” to collect files?  Here’s a case where it appears that method may have been used, resulting in a judgment against the producing party.

In AtHome Care, Inc. v. The Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society, No. 1:12-cv-053-BLW (D. ID. Apr. 30, 2013), Idaho District Judge B. Lynn Winmill granted the plaintiff’s motion to compel documents, ordering the defendant to identify and produce metadata for the documents in this case.

In this pilot project contract dispute between two health care organizations, the plaintiff filed a motion to compel after failing to resolve some of the discovery disputes with the defendant “through meet and confers and informal mediation with the Court’s staff”.  One of the disputes was related to the omission of metadata in the defendant’s production.

Judge Winmill stated that “Although metadata is not addressed directly in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, it is subject to the same general rules of discovery…That means the discovery of metadata is also subject to the balancing test of Rule 26(b)(2)(C), which requires courts to weigh the probative value of proposed discovery against its potential burden.” {emphasis added}

“Courts typically order the production of metadata when it is sought in the initial document request and the producing party has not yet produced the documents in any form”, Judge Winmill continued, but noted that “there is no dispute that Good Samaritan essentially agreed to produce metadata, and would have produced the requested metadata but for an inadvertent change to the creation date on certain documents.”

The plaintiff claimed that the system metadata was relevant because its claims focused on the unauthorized use and misappropriation of its proprietary information and whether the defendant used the plaintiff’s proprietary information to create their own materials and model, contending “that the system metadata can answer the question of who received what information when and when documents were created”.  The defendant argued that the plaintiff “exaggerates the strength of its trade secret claim”.

Weighing the value against the burden of producing the metadata, Judge Winmill ruled that “The requested metadata ‘appears reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.’ Fed.R. Civ.P. 26(b)(1). Thus, it is discoverable.” {emphasis added}

“The only question, then, is whether the burden of producing the metadata outweighs the benefit…As an initial matter, the Court must acknowledge that Good Samaritan created the problem by inadvertently changing the creation date on the documents. The Court does not find any degree of bad faith on the part of Good Samaritan — accidents happen — but this fact does weight in favor of requiring Good Samaritan to bear the burden of production…Moreover, the Court does not find the burden all that great.”

Therefore, the plaintiff’s motion to compel production of the metadata was granted.

So, what do you think?  Should a party be required to produce metadata?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

How to Create an Image Using FTK Imager – eDiscovery Best Practices

A few days ago, we talked about the benefits and capabilities of Forensic Toolkit (FTK), which is a computer forensics software application provided by AccessData, as well as how to download your own free copy.  Now, let’s discuss how to create a disk image.

Before we begin, it’s important to note that best practices when creating a disk image includes the use of a write blocker.  Write blockers are devices that allow data to be acquired from a drive without creating the possibility of accidentally damaging the drive contents. They allow read commands to pass but block write commands, protecting the drive contents from being changed.  Tableau and FireFly are two examples of write blockers.

It’s also important to note that while we’re showing you how to “try this at home”, use of a certified forensic collection specialist is recommended when collecting data forensically that could require expert testimony on the collection process.

Create an Image Using FTK Imager

I’m going to create an image of one of my flash drives to illustrate the process.  To create an image, select Create Disk Image from the File menu.

Source Evidence Type: To image an entire device, select Physical Drive (a physical device can contain more than one Logical Drive).  You can also create an image of an Image File, which seems silly, but it could be desirable if, say, you want to create a more compressed version of the image.  You can also image the specific Contents of a Folder or of a Femico Device (which is ideal for creating images of multiple CDs or DVDs with the same parameters).  In this example, we’ll select Physical Drive to create an image of the flash drive.

Source Drive Selection: Based on our selection of physical drive, we then have a choice of the current physical drives we can see, so we select the drive corresponding to the flash drive.

Create Image: Here is where you can specify where the image will be created.  We also always choose Verify images after they are created as a way to run a hash value check on the image file.  You can also Create directory listings of all files in the image after they are created, but be prepared that this will be a huge listing for a typical hard drive with hundreds of thousands of entries.

Select Image Type: This indicates the type of image file that will be created – Raw is a bit-by-bit uncompressed copy of the original, while the other three alternatives are designed for use with a specific forensics program.  We typically use Raw or E01, which is an EnCase forensic image file format.  In this example, we’re using Raw.

Evidence Item Information: This is where you can enter key information about the evidence item you are about to create to aid in documenting the item.  This information will be saved as part of the image summary information once the image is complete.

Select Image Destination: We’ll browse to a folder that I’ve created called “FTKImage” on the C: drive and give the image a file name.  Image Fragment Size indicates the size of each fragment when you want to break a larger image file into multiple parts.  Compression indicates the level of compression of the image file, from 0 (no compression) to 9 (maximum compression – and a slower image creation process).  For Raw uncompressed images, compression is always 0.  Use AD Encryption indicates whether to encrypt the image – we don’t typically select that, instead choosing to put an image on an encrypted drive (when encryption is desired).  Click Finish to begin the image process and a dialog will be displayed throughout the image creation process.  Because it is a bit-by-bit image of the device, it will take the same amount of time regardless of how many files are currently stored on the device.

Drive/Image Verify Results: When the image is complete, this popup window will appear to show the name of the image file, the sector count, computed (before image creation) and reported (after image creation) MD5 and SHA1 hash values with a confirmation that they match and a list of bad sectors (if any).  The hash verification is a key check to ensure a valid image and the hash values should be the same regardless which image type you create.

Image Summary: When the image is complete, click the Image Summary button to see the view a summary of the image that is created, including the evidence item information you entered, drive information, hash verification information, etc.  This information is also saved as a text file.

Directory Listing: If you selected Create directory listings of all files in the image, the results will be stored in a CSV file, which can be opened with Excel.

And, there you have it – a bit-by-bit image of the device!  You’ve just captured everything on the device, including deleted files and slack space data.  Next time, we’ll discuss Adding an Evidence Item to look at contents or drives or images (including the image we created here).

For more information, go to the Help menu to access the User Guide in PDF format.

So, what do you think?  Have you used FTK Imager as a mechanism for eDiscovery collection?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

More Updates from the EDRM Annual Meeting – eDiscovery Trends

Yesterday, we discussed some general observations from the Annual Meeting for the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) group and discussed some significant efforts and accomplishments by the (suddenly heavily talked about) EDRM Data Set project.  Here are some updates from other projects within EDRM.

It should be noted these are summary updates and that most of the focus on these updates is on accomplishments for the past year and deliverables that are imminent.  Over the next few weeks, eDiscovery Daily will cover each project in more depth with more details regarding planned activities for the coming year.

Model Code of Conduct (MCoC)

The MCoC was introduced in 2011 and became available for organizations to subscribe last year.  To learn more about the MCoC, you can read the code online here, or download it as a 22 page PDF file here.  Subscribing is easy!  To voluntarily subscribe to the MCoC, you can register on the EDRM website here.  Identify your organization, provide information for an authorized representative and answer four verification questions (truthfully, of course) to affirm your organization’s commitment to the spirit of the MCoC, and your organization is in!  You can also provide a logo for EDRM to include when adding you to the list of subscribing organizations.  Pending a survey of EDRM members to determine if any changes are needed, this project has been completed.  Team leaders include Eric Mandel of Zelle Hofmann, Kevin Esposito of Rivulex and Nancy Wallrich.

Information Governance Reference Model (IGRM)

The IGRM team has continued to make strides and improvements on an already terrific model.  Last October, they unveiled the release of version 3.0 of the IGRM.  As their press release noted, “The updated model now includes privacy and security as primary functions and stakeholders in the effective governance of information.”  IGRM continues to be one of the most active and well participated EDRM projects.  This year, the early focus – as quoted from Judge Andrew Peck’s keynote speech at Legal Tech this past year – is “getting rid of the junk”.  Project leaders are Aliye Ergulen from IBM, Reed Irvin from Viewpointe and Marcus Ledergerber from Morgan Lewis.

Search

One of the best examples of the new, more agile process for creating deliverables within EDRM comes from the Search team, which released its new draft Computer Assisted Review Reference Model (CARRM), which depicts the flow for a successful Computer Assisted Review project. The entire model was created in only a matter of weeks.  Early focus for the Search project for the coming year includes adjustments to CARRM (based on feedback at the annual meeting).  You can also still send your comments regarding the model to mail@edrm.net or post them on the EDRM site here.  A webinar regarding CARRM is also planned for late July.  Kudos to the Search team, including project leaders Dominic Brown of Autonomy and also Jay Lieb of kCura, who got unmerciful ribbing for insisting (jokingly, I think) that TIFF files, unlike Generalissimo Francisco Franco, are still alive.  🙂

Jobs

In late January, the Jobs Project announced the release of the EDRM Talent Task Matrix diagram and spreadsheet, which is available in XLSX or PDF format. As noted in their press release, the Matrix is a tool designed to help hiring managers better understand the responsibilities associated with common eDiscovery roles. The Matrix maps responsibilities to the EDRM framework, so eDiscovery duties associated can be assigned to the appropriate parties.  Project leader Keith Tom noted that next steps include surveying EDRM members regarding the Matrix, requesting and co-authoring case-studies and white papers, and creating a short video on how to use the Matrix.

Metrics

In today’s session, the Metrics project team unveiled the first draft of the new Metrics model to EDRM participants!  Feedback was provided during the session and the team will make the model available for additional comments from EDRM members over the next week or so, with a goal of publishing for public comments in the next two to three weeks.  The team is also working to create a page to collect Metrics measurement tools from eDiscovery professionals that can benefit the eDiscovery community as a whole.  Project leaders Dera Nevin of TD Bank and Kevin Clark noted that June is “budget calculator month”.

Other Initiatives

As noted yesterday, there is a new project to address standards for working with native files in the different EDRM phases led by Eric Mandel from Zelle Hofmann and also a new initiative to establish collection guidelines, spearheaded by Julie Brown from Vorys.  There is also an effort underway to refocus the XML project, as it works to complete the 2.0 version of the EDRM XML model.  In addition, there was quite a spirited discussion as to where EDRM is heading as it approaches ten years of existence and it will be interesting to see how the EDRM group continues to evolve over the next year or so.  As you can see, a lot is happening within the EDRM group – there’s a lot more to it than just the base Electronic Discovery Reference Model.

So, what do you think?  Are you a member of EDRM?  If not, why not?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Reporting from the EDRM Annual Meeting and a Data Set Update – eDiscovery Trends

The Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) Project was created in May 2005 by George Socha of Socha Consulting LLC and Tom Gelbmann of Gelbmann & Associates to address the lack of standards and guidelines in the electronic discovery market.  Now, beginning its ninth year of operation with its annual meeting in St. Paul, MN, EDRM is accomplishing more than ever to address those needs.  Here are some highlights from the meeting, and an update regarding the (suddenly heavily talked about) EDRM Data Set project.

Annual Meeting

Twice a year, in May and October, eDiscovery professionals who are EDRM members meet to continue the process of working together on various standards projects.  This will be my eighth year participating in EDRM at some level and, oddly enough, I’m assisting with PR and promotion (how am I doing so far?).  eDiscovery Daily has referenced EDRM and its phases many times in the 2 1/2 years plus history of the blog – this is our 144th post that relates to EDRM!

Some notable observations about today’s meeting:

  • New Participants: More than half the attendees at this year’s annual meeting are attending for the first time.  EDRM is not just a core group of “die-hards”, it continues to find appeal with eDiscovery professionals throughout the industry.
  • Agile Approach: EDRM has adopted an Agile approach to shorten the time to complete and publish deliverables, a change in philosophy that facilitated several notable accomplishments from working groups over the past year including the Model Code of Conduct (MCoC), Information Governance Reference Model (IGRM), Search and Jobs (among others).  More on that tomorrow.
  • Educational Alliances: For the first time, EDRM has formed some interesting and unique educational alliances.  In April, EDRM teamed with the University of Florida Levin College of Law to present a day and a half conference entitled E-Discovery for the Small and Medium Case.  And, this June, EDRM will team with Bryan University to provide an in-depth, four-week E-Discovery Software & Applied Skills Summer Immersion Program for Law School Students.
  • New Working Group: A new working group to be lead by Eric Mandel of Zelle Hoffman was formed to address standards for working with native files in the different EDRM phases.

Tomorrow, we’ll discuss the highlights for most of the individual working groups.  Given the recent amount of discussion about the EDRM Data Set group, we’ll start with that one today!

Data Set

The EDRM Enron Data Set has been around for several years and has been a valuable resource for eDiscovery software demonstration and testing (we covered it here back in January 2011).  The data in the EDRM Enron PST Data Set files is sourced from the FERC Enron Investigation release made available by Lockheed Martin Corporation.  It was reconstituted as PST files with attachments for the EDRM Data Set Project.  So, in essence EDRM took already public domain available data and made the data much more usable.  Initially, the data was made available for download on the EDRM site, then subsequently moved to Amazon Web Services (AWS).

In the past several days, there has been much discussion about the personally-identifiable information (“PII”) available within the FERC (and consequently the EDRM Data Set), including social security numbers, credit card numbers, dates of birth, home addresses and phone numbers.  Consequently, the EDRM Data Set has been taken down from the AWS site.

The Data Set team led by Michael Lappin of Nuix and Eric Robi of Elluma Discovery has been working on a process (using predictive coding technology) to identify and remove the PII data from the EDRM Data Set.  Discussions about this process began months ago, prior to the recent discussions about the PII data contained within the set.  The team has completed this iterative process for V1 of the data set (which contains 1,317,158 items), identifying and removing 10,568 items with PII, HIPAA and other sensitive information.  This version of the data set will be made available within the EDRM community shortly for peer review testing.  The data set team will then repeat the process for the larger V2 version of the data set (2,287,984 items).  A timetable for republishing both sets should be available soon and the efforts of the Data Set team on this project should pay dividends in developing and standardizing processes for identifying and eliminating sensitive data that eDiscovery professionals can use in their own data sets.

The team has also implemented a Forensic Files Testing Project site where users can upload their own “modern”, non-copyrighted file samples that are typically encountered during electronic discovery processing to provide a more diverse set of data than is currently available within the Enron data set.

So, what do you think?  How has EDRM impacted how you manage eDiscovery?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Image is Everything, But it Doesn’t Have to Cost Anything – eDiscovery Best Practices

Do you remember this commercial?  Can you believe it’s 23 years old?

Let’s recap.  So far, in our discussion of free utilities for collection of data for eDiscovery, we’ve discussed the pitfalls of using drag and drop, the benefits of Robocopy (illustrating with the same example copy) and the benefits (and pitfalls) of Richcopy for targeted collection.  But, are there any free tools that will enable you to perform a bit-by-bit forensic image copy that includes deleted files and slack space data?  Yes, there is.

Forensic Toolkit (FTK) is a computer forensics software application provided by AccessData.  The toolkit includes a standalone disk imaging program called FTK Imager.  FTK Imager is a free tool that saves an image of a hard disk in one file or in segments that may be reconstructed later. It calculates MD5 or SHA-1 hash values of the original and the copy, confirming the integrity of the data before closing the files.

With FTK Imager, you can:

  • Create forensic images of local hard drives, floppy diskettes, Zip disks, CDs, and DVDs, entire folders, or individual files from various places within the media.
  • Preview files and folders on local hard drives, network drives, floppy diskettes, Zip disks, CDs, and DVDs – including files located in container files such as ZIP or RAR files.
  • Preview the contents of forensic images stored on the local machine or on a network drive.
  • Mount an image for a read-only view that leverages Windows Explorer to see the content of the image exactly as the user saw it on the original drive.
  • Export files and folders from forensic images.
  • See and recover files that have been deleted from the Recycle Bin, but have not yet been overwritten on the drive.
  • Create MD5 or SHA-1 hashes of files and generate hash reports for regular files and disk images (including files inside disk images) that you can later use as a benchmark to prove the integrity of your case evidence. When a full drive is imaged, a hash generated by FTK Imager can be used to verify that the image hash and the drive hash match after the image is created, and that the image has remained unchanged since acquisition.

Like all forensically-sound collection tools, it retains the file system metadata (and the file path) and creates a log of the files copied.  You can also provide Case Number, Evidence Number, Unique Description, Examiner, and any Notes for tracking purposes to aid in chain of custody tracking.

To download FTK Imager, you can go to the AccessData Product Downloads page here.  Look for the link for FTK Imager in “Current Releases” (it’s currently the seventh item on the list) and open the folder and select the current version of FTK Imager (currently v3.1.2, released on 12/13/12).

Next week, we will begin to discuss how to use FTK Imager to preview files, create forensic images, recover deleted files and use hash values to validate your image.

So, what do you think?  Have you used FTK Imager as a mechanism for eDiscovery collection?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

You Don’t Have to Be Rich to Use Richcopy – eDiscovery Best Practices

A couple of weeks ago, we discussed the pitfalls of using drag and drop for collecting files for eDiscovery and illustrated an example using a blog post that I wrote about a month ago in a Word document for the post Five Common Myths About Predictive Coding.  If you followed the steps along with one of your own files, you noticed that the resulting file appeared to have been modified before it was created, which reflects spoliation of the metadata during the copy process.

Last week, we discussed the benefits of Robocopy, how to access it via the command line prompt (if you have Windows Vista or later) and how to get it (if you don’t).  Then, we performed an example copy (using an Excel script I use to create the copy) and took a look at the results to show how the date metadata was preserved during the copy.  If you’d still like a copy of the Excel Robocopy script, feel free to request it by emailing me at daustin@cloudnincloudnine.comm.

If you want to be able to perform a forensically sound targeted collection, but would prefer a GUI based tool for performing the copy (instead of a command-line tool like Robocopy), then perhaps you should consider Richcopy.  RichCopy is a free computer utility program developed by Ken Tamaru of Microsoft to copy file directories.  It has some advantages, but also some pitfalls, to consider as a targeted copy and collection tool.

One of the benefits of Richcopy (in addition to the GUI interface) is that it copies several files simultaneously (“multi-threaded”), which can drastically reduce the time required for multi-gigabyte file copy operations (earlier versions of Robocopy didn’t support multi-threaded copying, but the current one does, with the /MT[:n] command).

Unfortunately, Richcopy has not been updated in nearly four years by the developer, so you may run into issues (for example, it apparently doesn’t handle file names longer than 255 characters) and, as a free utility, it’s not supported by Microsoft.  Also, Help doesn’t open up throughout much of the application, so getting additional information from the help file is not always easy.  Consider yourself warned.

You can download a copy of Richcopy from the link in this TechNet magazine article.  I did so, and performed the same copy of the Word document for the post Five Common Myths About Predictive Coding that I performed in the other cases.  Let’s see how Richcopy handled that file copy.

You’ll see below that the main form of Richcopy provides the ability to select the source and destination paths, and specify options (as indicated by the red box).  Once you have the parameters set, click the green “Go” button (as indicated by the red circle) to perform the copy.  Progress and logging information will appear in the two status windows below.

The Options button opens a dialog for specifying a variety of options, including copy parameters, thread counts, file attributes and error handling, files to be included and/or excluded (by name, extension or attributes, such as excluding system files) and logging.  As you’ll see below, I set the “files to be included” option to copy the example file I’ve been using in the other tests.

The result?  I did get a copy of the selected file which contained preserved file metadata (i.e., the Created date and the Accessed date reflect the original date and time when the file was created and last accessed).  However, it also copied empty folder for all of the folders underneath the source folder.  I couldn’t figure out how to turn it off and the aforementioned Help file issues didn’t enable me to identify a workaround.

If you absolutely require a GUI interface for free targeted file collection, Richcopy may be a better alternative than Robocopy, but not necessarily the best alternative.  Next week, we’ll begin discussing another free GUI alternative that not only supports targeted collection of files, but also supports bit-by-bit imaging to capture deleted files and slack space data!

So, what do you think?  Have you used Richcopy as a mechanism for eDiscovery collection?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Performing an Example Copy with Robocopy – eDiscovery Best Practices

Yesterday, we discussed the benefits of Robocopy, how to access it via the command line prompt (if you have Windows Vista or later) and how to get it (if you don’t).  Today, we’re going to perform an example copy and take a look at the results.

As you’ll recall, we discussed the pitfalls last week of using drag and drop for collecting files for eDiscovery and illustrated an example using a blog post that I wrote about a month ago in a Word document for the post Five Common Myths About Predictive Coding.  If you followed the steps along with one of your own files, you noticed that the resulting file appeared to have been modified before it was created, which reflects spoliation of the metadata during the copy process.  Let’s see how Robocopy handles that file copy.

I mentioned yesterday that Robocopy is a command line tool.  If you’re really good at typing long commands at the command prompt without making a mistake, you can enter cmd in the ‘Search programs and files’ box from the Windows Start menu (‘Start’, then ‘Run’, for older versions on Windows) and that will open up a window with the command prompt.  Feel free to “have at it”.

I actually use Excel as a Robocopy script builder – courtesy of CloudNine Discovery’s Vice President of Computer Forensics, Michael Heslop (thanks, Mikey!).  The Excel workbook that I’m using takes user entered information regarding the custodian’s files to be copied and uses that to build a Robocopy statement that can then be executed at the command prompt.  I have three script examples in the Excel file: 1) Script to copy all files/folders in a folder path, 2) Script to copy specific file extensions in a folder path, and 3) Script to copy one file in a folder path.  It’s the third script example I’ll use here.

You’ll see below that I’ve highlighted the changes I’ve made to the single file copy script in the Excel spreadsheet, specifying the file name that I want to copy, the name of the custodian, the destination drive (in this case, the “E:” drive which references a connected external drive) and the path to be copied.

The resulting Robocopy statement created is as follows:

robocopy “C:Usersdaustin” “E:Austin, DougCUsersdaustin” “Common Myths About Predictive Coding–eDiscovery Best Practices.docx” /S /ZB /XJ /V /TEE /W:0 /R:0 /LOG+:”E:RobcopyLog-Austin,Doug.log”

This statement (that Michael created) takes the prompt information I’ve provided and uses it to build the Robocopy statement with desired copy and logging options.  To see a list of available options for Robocopy, type robocopy /? at the command prompt.

I take the Robocopy statement and copy it, pasting it into an empty file in Notepad or Wordpad, then save it with a file name that contains a “.bat” extension (e.g., robocop1.bat, saved to my desktop).  Then, simply double-click the file and it will open up a command window on the desktop and execute the statement.

Doing so put a copy of the file in the E:Austin, DougCUsersdaustinDocuments folder.  It also created a log file at the root which documents every folder it checked and the one folder in which it found the file.  Look at the properties of the copied file and you’ll see:

The Created date and the Accessed date reflect the original date and time when the file was created and last accessed.  That’s what we want!

You can request a copy of my Excel Robocopy script builder by sending an email to me at daustin@cloudnincloudnine.comm and I’ll be happy to send it to you.   It’s rudimentary, but it works!

So, what do you think?  Have you used Robocopy as a mechanism for eDiscovery collection?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Want to Save Your Metadata in Collection? Robocop(y) to the Rescue! – eDiscovery Best Practices

I may be showing my age, but I love the original movie RoboCop (1987).  Good movie for its time (the original, not the sequels).  But, I digress…

Last week, we discussed the pitfalls of using drag and drop for collecting files for eDiscovery and illustrated an example using a blog post that I wrote about a month ago in a Word document for the post Five Common Myths About Predictive Coding.  If you followed the steps along with one of your own files, you noticed that the resulting file appeared to have been modified before it was created, which reflects spoliation of the metadata during the copy process.

I mentioned that there are better, more forensically sound, free methods for collecting data.  One such method is Robocopy.  Robocopy is short for “Robust File Copy”.  So, technically, it has nothing to do with RoboCop, unless you consider that it protects your file metadata during the copy and saves you from spoliation of data.  Here are some key benefits:

  • Saves Metadata: Preserves file system date/time stamps which, as we illustrated last week, drag and drop does not preserve;
  • Targeted Collections: Suitable for targeted active file collections, primarily based on copying folders and their contents (files and sub-folders), not for deleted files or data from unallocated space;
  • Reliable: Enables the user to resume copying where it left off in the event of network/system interruptions;
  • Complete: Supports mirroring of the source folder so that the entire contents can be copied, including empty folders;
  • Self-Documenting: Provides an option to log the copy process for self-documentation, useful for chain of custody tracking.

If you have Windows Vista (or a later version of Windows, such as Windows 7 or Windows 8), you already have the command line version of Robocopy.  Robocopy provides numerous options for copying, including how files are copied, which files are selected, options for retrying files that fail to copy and options to log the copy process.  To see all syntax options for Robocopy (and there are many), type robocopy /? at the command prompt.

If you have an earlier version of Windows (like XP), Robocopy is not automatically included with your version of Windows.  To install it you have two options: 1. Download the robocopy.exe from the Windows 2003 resource kit, or 2. Install a GUI version which includes the exe.

If you prefer a GUI interface for later versions of Windows, you can try Richcopy (which we will discuss next week).

Not excited about using a command line tool?  Tomorrow, we will walk through a Robocopy exercise with the same file I copied last week and I will discuss how you can build a Robocopy “script” in Excel (or use one that I already have) to make the copying and collection process easier.

So, what do you think?  Have you used Robocopy as a mechanism for eDiscovery collection?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Image Copyright ©Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.