Just Solve the File Format Problem - User contributions [en]

User:Willyk

2017-02-21T13:32:28Z

Willyk:

I'm new to this site, it was recommended to me as a place to post file format information by an internet acquaintance. I'm currently having problems posting anything with an external link in it. If I can't post external links to articles of interest this is a useless set of pages for me as little significant content can be passed along. It will be interesting to see if I can post this page with the external link below to my personal web site's file format page where I have reverse engineered several formats for older (1995-2001) backup programs.

nope, that doesn't work. I'm out of here with the opinion that this site is not seriously looking to survive as they make adding content too difficult.

copy and past 'willsworks.net/file-format' into your browser if you want to see information about the small set of formats I've done reverse engineering on.

Talk:Main Page

2017-02-20T17:29:36Z

Willyk: /* problems adding external links */

== problems adding external links ==

I have knowledge of several file formats that are not currently listed.
I tried to add information about extension 113 yesterday.
I wanted to add external links to my own pages which include C source code
and WinNT console applications to parse this format.

I was prevented from saving the page as it included external links.
I read the help and tried all the permutations I could think of for the required IRC channel listed on the main site page. I was still prevented from saving the page.

I ultimately saved the page with no external links, but this is a frustrating experience and not conducive to my adding additional pages. The 'more information' page for the external link override says to contact a site administrator. I have no idea how to do so. This is my attempt. Anyone know how to get external links to work?
I suggest you verify before replying as I believe this site is broken.

At least in some way as I also tried to save a page similar to this in the discussions area while logged in yesterday and was told it could not be saved as there were external links. There are none, so maybe the site has a dumb memory?
Saving this version today seems to have worked.
[[User:Willyk|Willyk]] ([[User talk:Willyk|talk]]) 17:48, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

:I'm not entirely sure... maybe there's some configuration set so that recently added users are limited in ability to add links, as an anti-spam feature? Or maybe the site you're trying to link to is on a suspicious-sites list? [[User:Dan Tobias|Dan Tobias]] ([[User talk:Dan Tobias|talk]]) 19:34, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

:Thanks for your reply Dan. This does show up in my browser today, maybe there is a delay as it didn't yesterday. I will wait patiently and see if anyone can get me permission to add links in my posts but retain my moderate level of frustration.
[[User:Willyk|Willyk]] ([[User talk:Willyk|talk]]) 17:29, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

User:Willyk

2017-02-19T16:03:59Z

Willyk:

I'm new to this site, it was recommended to me as a place to post file format information by an internet acquaintance. I'm currently having problems posting anything with an external link in it. If I can't post external links to articles of interest this is a useless set of pages for me as little significant content can be passed along. It will be interesting to see if I can post this page with the external link below to my personal web site's file format page where I have reverse engineered several formats for older (1995-2001) backup programs.

nope, that doesn't work. I'm out of here with the opinion that this site is not seriously looking to survive as they make adding content too difficult.

I tried to reach the site moderators about this problem by posting in the discussions area, but my complaint was deleted within 24 hours. You guys are clearly on your own.
copy and past 'willsworks.net/file_format' into your broswer for my information

User:Willyk

2017-02-19T16:03:17Z

Willyk:

I'm new to this site, it was recommended to me as a place to post file format information by an internet acquaintance. I'm currently having problems posting anything with an external link in it. If I can't post external links to articles of interest this is a useless set of pages for me as little significant content can be passed along. It will be interesting to see if I can post this page with the external link below to my personal web site's file format page where I have reverse engineered several formats for older (1995-2001) backup programs.

nope, that doesn't work. I'm out of here with the opinion that this site is not seriously looking to survive as they make adding content too difficult.

I tried to reach the site moderators about this problem by posting in the discussions area, but my complaint was deleted within 24 hours. You guys are clearly on your own.
copy and past willsworks.net/file_format into your broswer for my information

User:Willyk

2017-02-19T16:00:11Z

Willyk: my bio and complaints about the current system

Talk:Main Page

2017-02-18T17:48:51Z

Willyk:

Talk:Main Page

2017-02-18T17:32:46Z

Willyk:

Talk:Main Page

2017-02-18T17:29:21Z

Willyk: /* problems adding external links */ new section

113

2017-02-17T15:24:35Z

Willyk: Iomega 1-Step Backup Image.113 file format

{{FormatInfo
|formattype=electronic
|subcat=Backup
|extensions={{ext|113}}
}}

=== Distributions ===
Iomega released several versions of a 1-Step backup Program.
This program ran on Win9x operating systems, ie Win95, Win98, and WinME.
The signatures mentioned below assume an Intel Chip-set and little-endian numeric format.
Its probable there were Macintosh versions for the Motorola 68000 Chip-set
If Mac versions exist, the signature bytes are probably swapped.

There are known to be two downloadable versions of this software package available
for installation on Win9x systems:
<pre>
w32_iom221a_en.exe version 4.1 distribution date 08/27/2001
iobackup-w32-x86-44.exe version 4.4 distribution date 02/29/2000
The distribution dates above are from the time stamps on the files and the
version numbers are from the enclosed readme.txt files. You figure it out.
</pre>
You should be able to find these with an internet search for the installer file name.
Version 4.1 is also know to be available on some of the IomegaWare distribution CDs.


The installers above created dtiom98.exe which is the backup and restore program
and dtsc.exe allows file selection and controlling whether the backup will be compressed.

=== Backup File Identification ===
The backup program would only run if a Iomega disk was connected to the system and then
the backup was written to one or more 'Image.113' files on the removable media.
Only one such file was allowed on each media disk. If more
than one disk was required additional 'Image.113' files were created on additional disks
in the set. These were normal files and could be copied or renamed later. Each backup
file starts with a header similar to the dump of a sample below:
<pre>
00000: 55 AA 55 AA FF 00 02 00 00 00 DB 00 00 00 AE B0 |U.U.............
00010: 03 5E AE B0 03 5E 00 00 95 06 02 00 00 00 42 61 |.^...^........Ba
00020: 63 6B 75 70 20 4A 6F 62 20 32 2C 20 44 69 73 6B |ckup Job 2, Disk
00030: 20 31 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 | 1
00040: 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 EB BA 05 5E 00 00 | ...^..
00050: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................
00060: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................
00070: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................
00080: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 AE B0 03 5E 01 00 |.............^..
00090: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................

</pre>
all begin with the 4 bytes signature shown at offset 0.
a descriptive string begins at offset 0x1E
Job # reflects the backup number on the host machine.
Disk # refects the disk # in this backup series.
There appears to be no information on the number of disks in the set in the header.
The 4 byte long beginning at offset 0xA is the next available block in the file.
Most of the other 4 byte longs in the header starting at offsets 0xE,0x12,0x4A,0x8A
appear to be similar time stamps with unknown significance.

=== File Format ===

These files appear to use an internal block size of 0x7400 bytes.
The next available block above = (file size)/0x7400
The file data region begins after block 3, offset 0x15C00.

If the file contains compressed data the 1st 8 bytes will all be zeros.
The 1st 8 bytes in each block of a compressed file appear to be the
initial offset in an output file at which to begin decompression and
the next 4 byte long is the number of data bytes to decompress <= 0x7400.
For each sequential block in a backup file the 8 byte long increases.
This is sufficient to identify a compressed backup. Unfortunately the
file compression method has not been identified so at this time the data
cannot be extracted from these files without using the original software.

If the file contains uncompressed data the 3rd block at offset 0x15C00 will
begin with the 4 signature bytes shown in the sample dump below.
<pre>
15c00: CC 33 CC 33 86 00 A8 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 04 00 |.3.3............
15c10: 0A 00 49 07 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |..I.............
15c20: 00 0A 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 1C 00 10 00 00 |................
15c30: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................
15c40: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 04 00 63 00 3A 00 02 |...........c.:..
15c50: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 09 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................
15c60: 00 00 00 00 04 00 63 00 3A 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |......c.:.......
15c70: 00 00 00 00 10 00 4F 49 4D 47 03 00 00 00 00 00 |......OIMG......
15c80: 00 00 00 00 00 00 04 00 63 00 3A 00 0A 00 00 00 |........c.:.....
15c90: 99 66 99 66 07 00 99 66 99 66 0A 00 99 66 99 66 |.f.f...f.f...f.f
15ca0: 02 00 99 66 99 66 00 00 CC 33 CC 33 C2 00 A6 01 |...f.f...3.3....

</pre>
The signature hex byte sequence CC 33 CC 33 indicates the beginning of a data header region.
The signature hex byte sequence 99 66 99 66 occurs at the beginning and end of the
file data region. Each file header contains the file properties including
the file name and path (if it exists) as variable length unicode strings.
At offset 0x15C14 in the dump above is a 8 byte number representing the file length.
Its 0 as this is a drive specification for 'c:' which occurs 3 times in the header
as unicode strings. All headers contain the 'OIMG' bytes shown above. If the file
length were greater than zero the file data would be present between the two
file data signatures 99 66 99 66. At offset 0x15CA8 above is another header
region signature CC 33 CC 33 where the next file header begins.
This is more than enough to identify an uncompressed data file.

=== links ===
The following links are to a reverse engineering project where C source code was
created to validate the information above and create a program that can list or extract files
from an uncompressed backup. Unfortunately as mentioned above the compression method
used in the compressed backups has not yet been identified so file extraction from
compressed archives is currently not available.
<pre>
113-format provides more detail on the internal file format
rd113-info provides some help and examples on program useage
rd113.lzh contains WinNT console applications that run under Win32
rd113-src.tar.gz contains the source code to build the console programs
for Linux, DOS, or Win32
</pre>
unfortunately the system won't let me save the page with these links displayed
what a pain