Birch 2.4.17 Release

Features

BR Feature 01 – NVMe and SAS Drive Purge Capability 

  • Added purge capability for NVMe drives.

  • Introduced adjustable verification percentages for enhanced flexibility.

  • Added purge capability for SAS drives

  • Added new drive sanitization methods, including cryptographic erase, block erase, and overwrite.

  • Integrated sampling and verification processes to ensure data sanitization integrity.

BR Feature 02 – TCG Enterprise Support

  • Enabled unlocking for Trusted Computing Group (TCG) enterprise drives.

BR Feature 03 – Enhanced Remote Wipe Searchability

  • Users can search for drives using Serial Number, Machine Name, or IP in the remote wipe portal.

  • The appliance remove viewer is now searchable.

  • Hovering over a client in the remote viewer’s left pane displays the full name.

BR Feature 04 – Added Verification Functionality

  • Introduced a verification feature that is compliant with NIST standards.

  • Users can create new fingerprints and synchronize them across different appliances.

BR Feature 05 – Improved Device Awareness

  • Added functionality to log failed wipes if a drive is disconnected mid-wipe.

BR Feature 06 – Data Table Viewer for Resyncing ERPs

  • Provides a searchable data table for devices and actions performed on appliances.

  • Displays a complete list of wipes performed on disks.

  • Includes the ability to edit user-customizable fields and manually resync data with ERPs.

BR Feature 07 – Custom PXE Boot Settings

  • Customizable boot settings are available per device or globally.

  • Statistically generated boot option suggestions.

  • Advanced options for power users.

  • Enables more accurate wipe time estimation and better triage of network-related issues

BR Feature 08 – Configurable PXE Boot Timeout

  • Added customizable PXE boot timeout, allowing technicians extra time to select non-default boot options manually.

BR Feature 09 – iOS18 Support for Mobile Devices

  • Added support for Apple devices running iOS18.

BR Feature 10 – Improved Windows and Apple Management Locks Detection

  • Detects and saves Windows and Apple management locks for unencrypted drives.

BR Feature 11 – Remote Wipe Responsiveness

  • Improved stability during remote wipes when a large number of machines are booted simultaneously.

BR Feature 12 – USB Bootloader Responsiveness

  • Enhanced USB bootloader capabilities to minimize delays and improve performance.

BR Feature 13 – Diagnostic Tests

  • Improved battery detection for a more comprehensive testing process.

  • Expanded general support for additional audio codecs.

  • Enhanced support for microphone and speaker testing on HP ProBook devices

BR Feature 14 – Configurable Hardware Testing

  • Introduced the skip_diagnostic_tests_per_chassis feature for more flexible hardware testing configurations.

BR Feature 15 – NIST Clear 3-Pass

  • Enhanced support for the NIST 3-pass clear process, improving compliance and data sanitization.

BR Feature 16 – RAID Card Hot Swap Capability

  • Added support for hot-swapping IT-mode LSI RAID cards, ensuring correct updates for card, enclosure, and slot mappings.

BR Feature 17 – Enhanced Boot Option

  • Introduced additional hardware support via a beta boot option.

BR Feature 18 – Updated Windows Image Process

  • Simplified and streamlined the Windows imaging process.

BR Feature 19 – Enhanced Autostart Capability

  • Diagnostics can now run via the autostart-only selection for improved automation.

BR Feature 20 – Appliance and Client UI Readability Updates

  • Improved UI resolution scaling for better readability across devices with varying resolutions.

BR Feature 21 – Enhanced UI Information

  • Added serial number, make, and model details to the footer of the client UI.

  • Introduced navigation using left/right arrows (or A/D keys) for controlling diagnostic color displays.

BR Feature 22 – Digital Fingerprints

  • Users can create new digital fingerprints and sync them across multiple appliances.

BR Feature 23 – Enhanced Device Enumeration During Wipes

  • Custom drive categorization options (loose/in-unit/transfer) for better ERP tracking.

Bug Fixes

BR Fix 01 – Diagnostic Navigation

  • Added functionality to control display diagnostics tests using arrow keys or WASD keyboard inputs.

BR Fix 02 – BitLocker Detection for Imaging

  • Resolved errors related to BitLocker detection during imaging processes.

BR Fix 03 – Beta Boot Option Update

  • Updated the beta boot option to support more hardware, including compatibility with Linux 6.11.

BR Fix 04 – Wipe Credit Calculations

  • Adjusted calculations to exclude wipes in progress from credit usage totals.

BR Fix 05 – Improved Wipe Progress Rate Calculations

  • Enhanced accuracy of wipe progress rate tracking.

BR Fix 06 – Smart-Log Endpoint

  • Fixed issues with the smart-log endpoint in the browser interface.

BR Fix 07 – Hot Reboot Options

  • Added additional hot reboot options for Apple devices and beta systems.

BR Fix 08 – Mobile Info Buttons

  • Introduced red icon locks on mobile info buttons to indicate issues.

BR Fix 09 – Disk Wipe Notes

  • Enabled notes to be saved for SAS and SATA disk wipes.

BR Fix 10 – ERP FTP Disk Syncing

  • Added FTP option for custom ERP syncing

BR Fix 11 – CSV Report Creation

  • Added the ability to create CSV reports on the appliance for export to USB devices.

BR Fix 12 – USB Creation on USB 3.0 Drives

  • Resolved issues with creating bootable USB drives on USB 3.0 hardware.

BR Fix 13 – Grub Bootloader Update

  • Updated the Grub bootloader to resolve out-of-memory errors on modern machines.

BR Fix 14 – iPXE Update

  • Improved iPXE boot support for modern machines.

BR Fix 15 – SMART Parsing and Regrading

  • Optimized SMART regrading and added more robust tests for parsing SMART data.

BR Fix 16 – Wipe Method Naming

  • Cleaned up abbreviations in wipe methods to display full wipe names, primarily for purge-related operations.

BR Fix 17 – Disk Deduplication

  • Fixed issues with duplicate disks being listed in the machine inventory.

BR Fix 18 – Warranty Information Checks

  • Added support for quickly checking warranty information by including machine product details for specific customers.

BR Fix 19 – Lifetime Remaining Calculations

  • Improved accuracy of lifetime remaining estimates for hardware components.

BR Fix 20 – Network Card Speed Detection

  • Enhanced detection of network card speeds for better performance insights.

BR Fix 21 – RAM Information

  • Improved gathering and display of detailed RAM information.

BR Fix 22 – RAID Card Parsing

  • Fixed parsing issues for the last disk in RAID arrays.

BR Fix 23 – Log Gathering Time

  • Significantly reduced long log gathering times with a “please wait 20 seconds and try again” resolution prompt.

BR Fix 24 – NVMe Fallback Method

  • Fixed issues with NVMe fallback methods not finalizing correctly.

BR Fix 25 – DriveD Readable/Writeable Detection

  • Improved detection of read/write statuses in DriveD.

BR Fix 26 – DriveD Sampling Steps

  • Added detailed sampling steps to DriveD output for better wipe verification.

BR Fix 27 – DriveD Fingerprinting

  • Fixed issues with DriveD fingerprinting capabilities.

BR Fix 28 & 29 – Format Finalization

  • Resolved errors causing formats not to finalize correctly.

BR Fix 30 – SATA Drive Capacity on HP Servers

  • Fixed improper reduction of SATA drive capacity on HP servers.

BR Fix 31 & 32 – Large Drive Sampling Crashes

  • Resolved out-of-memory crashes when wiping large drives with high sampling percentages.

BR Fix 33 – Verification Step Skipping

  • Fixed an issue where verification steps were skipped if the “blink” feature was used with non-NIST Clear wipe methods.

BR Fix 34 – Reserve Buffer Allocation Error

  • Resolved the “Unable to allocate reserve buffer” error.

BR Fix 35 – ATA Security Unfreezing

  • Fixed issues with ATA security not being unfrozen on some drives during system suspension.

BR Fix 36 – Stability with Parallel Drive Operations

  • Improved stability when running multiple drives in parallel.

BR Fix 37 – WipeD Stability Improvements

  • Enhanced stability to prevent freezing or crashing when running multiple drives simultaneously.

BR Fix 38 – Improved Error Handling

  • Enhanced error handling across various operations for more robust performance.

BR Fix 39 – CPU Detail Support

  • Expanded support for detailed information on Intel and AMD CPUs.