TestDisk
| File:TestDisk-logo.gif | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Christophe Grenier |
| Stable release | 6.11 / April 19, 2009 |
| Platform | Multiplatform |
| Type | Data recovery |
| License | GNU General Public License |
| Website | www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk |
TestDisk is a free data recovery utility. It was primarily designed to help recover lost data storage 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 erasing a partition table).
Summary
TestDisk queries the BIOS or the operating system in order to find the hard disks and their characteristics (LBA size and CHS geometry). TestDisk does a quick check of your disk's structure and compares it with the partition table for entry errors. If the table has entry errors, TestDisk can repair them.
However, it's up to the user to look over the list of possible partitions found by TestDisk and to select the one(s) which were being used just before the drive failed to boot or the partition(s) were lost. In some cases, especially after initiating a detailed search for lost partitions, TestDisk may show partition data which is simply from the remnants of a partition that had been deleted and overwritten long ago.
TestDisk has features for both novices [1] and experts [2]:
- Recover deleted partition
- Rebuild partition table
- Rewrite Master boot record (MBR)
- File Allocation Table, FAT [3]
- FAT12 and FAT16
- Find filesystem parameters to rewrite a valid boot sector
- Use the two copies of the FAT to rewrite a coherent version
- FAT file undelete [4]
- FAT32
- Find filesystem parameters to rewrite a valid boot sector
- Restore the boot sector using its backup
- Use the two copies of the FAT to rewrite a coherent version
- FAT file undelete [4]
- FAT12 and FAT16
- NTFS [5]
- Find filesystem parameters to rewrite a valid boot sector
- Restore the boot sector using its backup
- Restore the Master File Table (MFT) from its backup
- NTFS file undelete [6]
- Extended file systems, ext2 and ext3
- HFS+
- Restore the boot sector using its backup
For those who know little or nothing about data recovery techniques, TestDisk can be used to collect detailed information about a corrupted drive which can then be sent to a tech for further analysis.
Supported operating systems
TestDisk supports these operating systems:
- DOS: real or in a Windows 9x DOS box
- Microsoft Windows: NT4, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista
- GNU/Linux
- FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD
- SunOS
- Mac OS X
File systems
TestDisk searches for lost partitions [9][10] of these file systems:
- Be File System (BeOS)
- BSD disklabel (FreeBSD/OpenBSD/NetBSD)
- Cramfs, Compressed File System
- DOS/Windows FAT 12, 16, and 32
- Windows exFAT
- HFS, HFS+ and HFSX, Hierarchical File System
- JFS, IBM's Journaled File System
- Linux ext2 and ext3
- Linux RAID
- 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
Popularity
TestDisk and PhotoRec have been downloaded more than 150 000 times in July 2008 from the primary website. In fact these utilities are even more popular as they can be found on various Linux Live CDs:
- Recovery Is Possible
- Knoppix STD
- GParted Live CD
- Iloog
- Parted Magic
- PLD Live CD and PLD RescueCD, based on PLD Linux Distribution
- Slax-LFI, a SLAX-derived distribution
- SystemRescueCD
- Trinity Rescue Kit
- Ubuntu Rescue Remix, the Ubuntu derivation
- Ultimate Boot CD - Linux/freeDOS-based computer rescue CD (partition, filesystem, and Windows tools).
They are also packaged for numerous Linux distribution
- ALT Linux [11]
- ArchLinux Extra Repository [12]
- Debian contrib [13]
- Fedora Extras [14]
- Red Hat Epel [15]
- FreeBSD ports [16]
- Gentoo [17] and Gentoo Portage [18]
- Mandriva contrib
- PLD Linux Distribution
- Source Mage GNU/Linux [19]
- Ubuntu [20]
References
- ↑ TestDisk Step by Step
- ↑ Presentation of TestDisk in The Sleuth Kit Informer
- ↑ Advanced FAT Repair
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 FAT file undelete
- ↑ NTFS boot sector and MFT repair
- ↑ NTFS file undelete
- ↑ Locate ext2/ext3 backup superblock
- ↑ ext2 file undelete
- ↑ Ido Perelmutter - Debian Administration, Recovering from file system corruption using TestDisk
- ↑ Ionut Ilascu, Softpedia, Your HDD Is Missing a Slice? Try TestDisk for a change
- ↑ TestDisk on ALT Linux
- ↑ [1] Extra Repository
- ↑ TestDisk on Debian
- ↑ TestDisk in Fedora Extras
- ↑ TestDisk in Red Hat Epel
- ↑ TestDisk in FreeBSD ports
- ↑ TestDisk in Gentoo
- ↑ TestDisk in Gentoo Portage
- ↑ TestDisk in Source Mage
- ↑ TestDisk in Ubuntu
See also
External links
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