TestDisk - Magical tool for partition recovery

[neeraj]

Test Disk

 

 

Just came across this very useful tool for all problems related to missing, deleted and/or corrupted partition.

 

As it happened, I was recently going for a fresh install of Win10 on my SSD. Decided to wipe out the existing Win10 partition on my HDD and use it for mass storage. My existing HDD had 3 partitions, one for Win10 installation and the other two for movies, games and stuff. During the fresh install on SDD I chose to delete the Win10 partition on HDD with the intention of quick formatting it for storage. However in a haste i deleted one of the two partition that I had been using for movies. Now its not a big deal to lose movies as you can always copy them from the DVD and or watch them online but I am a lazy guy and didn't want to go through all the hassles so I turned to Google in order to find a tool that would allow me to recover the deleted partitions. 

Tried quite a few tools like Easeus Wizard, Recover my files and Recuva but there were one or more issues with these tools. Either they were just trial versions(Easeus and Recovermyfiles) or they simply didn't have a functionality to identify the deleted partitions(Recuva). Then somewhere on the internet on some blog post i read about Test Disk. And I am amazed at the simple little tool. It doesnt have a GUI and the controls are mostly command prompt based. Though you have a neat interface to walk through the command prompt and clear options to choose from.

 

Using TestDisk the task of rewriting the deleted partitions to the disk was as simple as selecting the disk drive, analysing the structure and identifying if all the deleted partitions have been found and then finally writing them to disk!!

 

There is a wiki on this tool as well:

 

TestDisk Step by Step

 

It is open source and can be downloaded from

 

Test Disk - Product Page

 

Seems like a must have tool. Thought it would be useful so posted here in the forum