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1401 Probe 2.0.1

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@nullmoth nullmoth released this 09 Oct 13:47
· 5 commits to main since this release
v2.0.1
b1fce67

What changed in this version

Fixes the errors some of you saw on 2.0.0. If you made a 2.0.0 stick, make it again with 2.0.1.

  • Driver trace errors fixed. On 2.0.0 the last step printed "Bad file descriptor" / "write to closed file"
    errors and stalled for about a minute per device. The trace reader now stops cleanly.
  • NVIDIA's own driver now actually loads in the trace. 2.0.0 tried to unload nouveau while it was driving the
    screen, which fails, so the NVIDIA trace recorded nothing. The card is now handed over directly.
  • Instructions everywhere (site, stick, Windows app) match what the scan does: the Wi-Fi/Bluetooth question at the
    start, about 5 to 20 minutes, a black screen of up to 10 minutes near the end.
  • New: 1401-probe-linux.py makes the stick from Linux and finds your report afterwards.

Every earlier version stays up, with its hashes, on the releases page and at https://nullmothsystems.com/probe

About 1401 Probe

Free, offline, and open source.

1401 Probe turns a USB stick into a small scanner for your PC. You start the PC from the stick, it reads what
hardware the machine has, saves one report to the stick, and turns the PC off. Nothing leaves your computer unless
you upload the report yourself. Every report shows us what 1401 needs to support, so if you run it: thank you.

The same how-to, with the rest of the details, is on the site: https://nullmothsystems.com/probe

Downloads

File What it is SHA-256
1401-Probe-Setup.exe The Windows app. It makes the stick for you. Start here. eaf420397d432195571c2b9fcf90a73712a5908156f573a18ba4fa01dbdc402d
1401-probe-img.zip The raw stick image, if you don't have Windows or want to flash it yourself dd054d8c40f34ad97efb1594cea4bc3fed1e8b2f8660236bb3c3ba73d9b6a468
SHA256SUMS.txt Both hashes in one file

Check the installer before you run it

The installer isn't code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen will warn you about it. Before you click past that,
make sure the file is really ours. Its fingerprint is published in DNS, signed with DNSSEC, on a different system
from this download:

dig +short TXT _probe-sha256.nullmothsystems.com

Or on Windows, in PowerShell:

(Resolve-DnsName -Type TXT _probe-sha256.nullmothsystems.com).Strings

Then hash the file you downloaded, from the folder you saved it in:

Get-FileHash .\1401-Probe-Setup.exe

The two SHA-256 values should match exactly. If they don't, don't run it.

What you need

  • The Windows PC you want to scan
  • A USB stick, 1 GB or bigger. It gets erased, so copy anything you want off it first.
  • About 15 minutes
  • Secure Boot turned off for the scan. You turn it back on afterwards, and the app walks you through it.

How to use it

  1. Install. Run 1401-Probe-Setup.exe. When SmartScreen says "Windows protected your PC", click More info,
    then Run anyway.

  2. Make the stick. Open 1401 Probe and click Make the scanner USB stick. If BitLocker is on, click Pause
    BitLocker for 3 restarts     first. Pick your stick, tick the box, and click Erase and make the stick. Only USB
    drives show up in the list, so you can't wipe your main drive by accident.

  3. Turn off Secure Boot and start from the stick. Click Restart into BIOS setup. Find Secure Boot (it's
    usually under Boot or Security), set it to Disabled, then save and exit. As the PC starts, press your boot menu
    key and pick the USB stick marked UEFI. Boot menu keys: ASUS F8, MSI F11, Gigabyte F12, ASRock F11, Dell F12,
    HP F9, Lenovo F12, Acer F12. You can also click Restart now and pick the USB stick in the app and choose
    "Use a device". On the stick's menu, pick 1401 Probe - scan this computer. It starts by itself after 5
    seconds.

  4. Let it scan. It takes 2 to 8 minutes. The last step is a graphics test, and the screen can flicker or go
    black for up to 3 minutes. That's normal. When it says DONE, the report is saved and the PC turns itself off.
    If nothing happens for 5 minutes, hold the power button. Everything up to that point is already saved. Start
    from the stick again and pick the normal scan: it skips the step that froze and finishes the rest. If it
    freezes a second time, pick safe scan, which skips the graphics test.

  5. Put your settings back. Go into the BIOS again (usually Del or F2) and set Secure Boot back to Enabled. Back
    in Windows, open 1401 Probe and click I already scanned - find my report. It checks Secure Boot and BitLocker
    for you and offers to turn BitLocker back on. Your boot order was never changed.

  6. Send the report. Optional, but it's the whole point. Click Show both files. The stick's REPORTS folder
    has a .zip and a .txt with the same name, something like Z790-AORUS_i7-13700K_RTX4070_2026-09-25_a3f1.zip.
    You can open both and read them first. Then go to https://nullmothsystems.com/#send, drag both files onto the
    1402 Card Reader, and click Send. Keep the report ID it gives you (NM-XXXXXXXX).

What it does and doesn't do

  • It reads your hardware and writes one report, to its own stick. That's it.
  • It has no network, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth drivers, so it can't connect to anything.
  • Before it scans, it marks every drive except its own stick read-only. It never mounts your internal drives.
  • It never changes BIOS/UEFI settings. Secure Boot is the one setting you change, yourself.
  • Serial numbers, UUIDs, MAC addresses and your Windows product key are removed from the report before it's saved.
  • Nothing is uploaded automatically. Sending the report is up to you.

No Windows?

Download 1401-probe-img.zip, unzip it, and write 1401-probe.img to a USB stick with balenaEtcher, or Rufus in
DD mode. Then do steps 3 and 4, turn Secure Boot back on in your BIOS yourself, and send the two files from the
stick's REPORTS folder like in step 6.

Done with the stick?

Open 1401 Probe, click I already scanned - find my report, then Make it an ordinary USB drive again.

Build it yourself

Everything builds in Docker containers pinned by digest, and nothing gets installed on your machine. From a clone
of this repo:

NM_ALLOW_NO_PRIVATE=1 ./build.sh all

The README has the details and the QEMU test that boots the real stick image.

License

GPL-3.0-or-later. The parts it's built from (Linux, GRUB, BusyBox, Python, Alpine packages, firmware files) keep
their own licenses, listed in THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.txt on every stick. The NullMoth name and moth logo aren't
covered by the GPL (section 7(e)), so a modified version has to drop them.

Found a bug, or a machine it chokes on? Open an issue.

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