TestDisk, Data Recovery

TestDisk is OpenSource software and is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).
TestDisk is a powerful free data recovery software! It was primarily designed to help recover lost partitions and/or make non-booting disks bootable again when these symptoms are caused by faulty software, certain types of viruses or human error (such as accidentally deleting a Partition Table). Partition table recovery using TestDisk is really easy.
TestDisk can

• Fix partition table, recover deleted partition
• Recover FAT32 boot sector from its backup
• Rebuild FAT12/FAT16/FAT32 boot sector
• Fix FAT tables
• Rebuild NTFS boot sector
• Recover NTFS boot sector from its backup
• Fix MFT using MFT mirror
• Locate ext2/ext3 Backup SuperBlock
• Undelete files from FAT, NTFS and ext2 filesystem
• Copy files from deleted FAT, NTFS and ext2/ext3 partitions.

TestDisk has features for both novices and experts. For those who know little or nothing about data recovery techniques, TestDisk can be used to collect detailed information about a non-booting drive which can then be sent to a tech for further analysis. Those more familiar with such procedures should find TestDisk a handy tool in performing onsite recovery.

Operating systems

TestDisk can run under

• DOS (either real or in a Windows 9x DOS-box),
• Windows (NT4, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista),
• Linux,
• FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD,
• SunOS and
• MacOS

Source files and precompiled binary executables are available for DOS, Win32, MacOSX and Linux from the download page

Filesystems

TestDisk can find lost partitions for all of these file systems:

• BeFS ( BeOS )
• BSD disklabel ( FreeBSD/OpenBSD/NetBSD )
• CramFS, Compressed File System
• DOS/Windows FAT12, FAT16 and FAT32
• Windows exFAT
• HFS, HFS+ and HFSX, Hierarchical File System
• JFS, IBM's Journaled File System
• Linux ext2 and ext3
• Linux LUKS encrypted partition
• Linux RAID md 0.9/1.0/1.1/1.2
  • RAID 1: mirroring
  • RAID 4: striped array with parity device
  • RAID 5: striped array with distributed parity information
  • RAID 6: striped array with distributed dual redundancy information
• Linux Swap (versions 1 and 2)
• LVM and LVM2, Linux Logical Volume Manager
• Mac partition map
• Novell Storage Services NSS
• NTFS ( Windows NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008/7 )
• ReiserFS 3.5, 3.6 and 4
• Sun Solaris i386 disklabel
• Unix File System UFS and UFS2 (Sun/BSD/...)
• XFS, SGI's Journaled File System

Documentation

• How to get TestDisk
  • Download - Binary executables and source files are available for DOS, Win32, MacOSX and Linux.
  • TestDisk compilation
  • TestDisk and Live rescue cd
• Working with special media
  • Recover Damaged Hard Disks (bad sectors)
  • Disk image
  • CD-R/CR-RW/DVD...
• Using TestDisk
  • OS specific notes
  • TestDisk Step by Step to recover lost partitions and repair damaged FAT/NTFS boot sector
  • Running the TestDisk Program
  • Undelete files and directory from FAT12, FAT16 and FAT32 filesystem
  • Undelete files from ext2 filesystem
  • Undelete files from NTFS partition
  • Recovery examples
  • Scripted run
  • Support
• After using TestDisk
• Technical Notes
  • Developers How to contribute code to TestDisk & PhotoRec
  • Intel Partition Table
  • Microsoft Fdisk
  • SMART monitoring
  • Norton GoBack
  • Current Limitations
• How to help
• TestDisk & PhotoRec In The News
• TestDisk Team

To recover lost pictures or files from digital camera or harddisk, run the PhotoRec command.