STB Suite

Map WORM Utility

The STB Suite includes many utilities for a variety of testing needs. One testing need that arose was one for reading WORM data. The following guide talks about the MapWORM utility, how it works, and how to use it.

 

What is the MapWORM Utility?

The MapWORM is an application written in Microsoft Visual Basic, using the STB Suite Developers Toolbox (DTB) library.

What does the MapWORM Utility do?

  1. Reading the optical media and displaying a map of the data on the media. MapWORM is not aware of any type of filesystem or higher-level organization. By that we mean that it will simply read raw blocks (any sector size) from the media and display the count of data blocks plus the count of any “blanks” that may be used to separate data on the media. As an example, some medical data storage systems will write a single xray image as a series of blocks of data, separated by the ability of optical media to contain “blanks” . An image would be the data contained in the data blocks between these blanks. In this case you may see a map showing 50,000 data blocks, 2 blanks, 25,000 more data blocks, another blank…and so on.It is up to you to determine how the data is represented.
  2. Copying blocks of data into Windows binary files. This second purpose allows you to specify a block range which you think represents the higher-level data you are interested in and save it to a binary file on your Windows system. This file will be a byte-for-byte exact copy of what is on the optical media.

Screenshot of MapWORM

MapWorm Utility Screenshot

Step by step guide to use MapWORM

1. MapWORM first reads the media in the drive and displays what the block size and capacity of the media is:

2. Next use the Media Map function to scan the media and display how the data is laid out:

MapWORM Map MediaYou may see sections of data blocks interspersed with blanks – or you may only see contiguous data blocks – depending on what method was used to create the media.

3. Finally the data copy section is used to copy raw data from blocks on the media, writing them in binary format to a Windows file. You may specify the starting block number and number of blocks to copy.

MapWORM Copy Blocks

Summary

MapWORM is a versatile utility used to expose how data is stored on optical media and also allowing you to copy chunks of raw data from the optical media into Windows binary files where further processes can occur.

The subject of optical file systems and data organization is highly complex and SCSIToolbox is not able to provide detailed consultation on this subject. We simply supply the MapWORM utility as an aid to help you extract data from any optical media into a format which you can then further process.

The source code and project files for the MapWORM utility are provided to STB Suite customers.