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Sunday, February 20, 2011

TestDisk - CGSecurity

I have been using TestDisk to Recover Lost and Damaged Partitions for several years and it is an easy to use Command Line App, with text instructions that help you figure out how and what to do to Restore your Lost Partitions and Data. There is no need to learn Commands to use this App. Just read the instructions and hit the keys that do what you need done. Just Read the instructions Very Carefully and Pay Attention to wat is is going to happen when your are done. After the initial Quick Scan,TestDisk will offer to run a Deep Scan of your Hard Drive to try and find more Lost Partitions. I usually go ahead and do the Deep Scan, even if I think I see my lost Partition in the Quick Scan. Because, I usually don't remember the details or am not sure until I compare all Partitions in the resulting Deep Scan Results. Just which Partition I am looking for. But, even if you mess up and restore wrong Partition. You can run TestDisk again ane Restore another one from the list. Don't over do the Restoration Process though. After a few restorations, say 4 or 5. You may overwrite the Partition that you are wanting to Save. So, take care with your Decisions on which Partitions your are restoring and try to get the wright one the first or second time. You can install TestDisk from most Linus Distros Repositories into your Linux OS. But I usually use TestDisk by Booting to a Live Linux Restoration OS. Because you can't do a Restoration on a Mounted Partition without Risking Damage to the Partition you are Running Live from. It's Best and Safest to just Boot to a Live CD or DVD that Does Not Auto Mount any Partitions or at least Unmount all Partitions while Booted to a Live OS. You can do this from a USB Live OS too, if you prefer. Parted Magic is a great one. Insert Rescue CD, Utilex 10.8 and I believe that System Rescue CD and many other Linux Rescue CD - DVD's come with TestDisk Installed.

Don

TestDisk

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Latest stable version

6.11
April 19, 2009

TestDisk, Data Recovery

TestDisk is OpenSource software and is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).

TestDisk is 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/ext4 Backup SuperBlock
Undelete files from FAT, NTFS and ext2 filesystem
Copy files from deleted FAT, NTFS and ext2/ext3/ext4 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, 2008, Windows 7 (x86 & x64),
Linux,
FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD,
SunOS and
MacOS X

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, ext3 and ext4
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