Universal Cross-Platform Data Recovery Software

TestDisk is OpenSource software and is licensed under the terms of the GNU 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 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.

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 1,4,5,6)
• 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 )
• 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

The software is simply one of the best disaster recovery utilities, available on the market. Almost all Live CDs include it in their data recovery toolboxes. However, the lack of normal GUI will be a big drawback for the less advanced users. For those who at least slightly familiar with Kernel-type DOS-like utilities, that will not be a problem. Note that the software is all command line based. But you don’t have to remember and type any commands. Simply select the various options from the list using the arrow keys and press Enter to execute them. So the software does have an interface, it’s just not graphical one.

I would say that this utility is a must for the emergency data recovery!

OS: Dos, Windows NT/XP/2000/2003/Vista, Linux, Mac OS X

Author: Christophe Grenier

Website: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

Download Page (choose your OS): http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download