TestDisk & PhotoRec 7.2

★ Winner of Best Recovery Tool in 2017.

Overview

The TestDisk & PhotoRec package comprises of two separate applications: TestDisk and PhotoRec.

The TestDisk program is aimed at data recovery. This package can help to recover partitions that have been lost. It can also help with hard disks and other previously bootable storage that has temporarily lost its bootable aspects. Whether it is a lost partition or the media is having booting problems, these issues caused by badly performing software or viruses are fixable by using the TestDisk program.

The PhotoRec program is aimed at file recovery centered around video, images, documents, and other types of files that contain data, words, images, and so forth. The software works to recover the underlying data rather than worrying too much about recovering the file partition or repairing the hard drive or storage media.

With PhotoRec, the partition master tables and information confirming the location of files may be lost, but this software package is capable of searching for data types across a media (hard drive, CD, SD card, etc.) regardless of the state of the storage media. If a small portion of data relating to some photos can be recovered while the rest of the data cannot, this package will do its best rather than failing to recover the partition and giving up on data recovery altogether as some other file recovery programs might do.

Installation

TestDisk and PhotoRec can be installed separately. There is also another version known as QPhotoRec which is a graphical version of PhotoRec.

The installation of both TestDisk and PhotoRec went smoothly. There was no malicious software included with either installation.

TestDisk & PhotoRec requires Windows NT4, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, 2008, or Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit supported). There are also multiple versions of both packages for several other operating systems including Mac and various distributions of Linux.

Interface

The standard interface for both TestDisk and PhotoRec is essentially a DOS window inside of the Microsoft Windows OS, with a test-based display. The essential information is located and displayed for the user but there is nothing flashy about this application's interface.

In the case of PhotoRec because the application is mostly dealing with visual information, there is the QPhotoRec front-end which can add a different interface for the user. QPhotoRec is included in the download package.

Pros

• TestDisk: Recover lost, deleted or damaged disk partitions
• TestDisk: Rebuild FAT12, FAT16 or FAT32 boot sectors and rebuild FAT tables
• TestDisk: Rebuild NTFS boot sector or rebuild from a backup
• TestDisk: Fix MFT using a MFT mirror
• TestDisk: Undelete files from ext2, NTFS, exFAT and FAT types
• TestDisk: Copy files out of deleted ext2, ext3, ext4, NTFS, exFAT or FAT partitions
• PhotoRec: Recover image information from hard drives and storage media using FAT, NTFS, exFAT, ext2, ext3, ext4 or HFS+ file systems
• PhotoRec: Recover partial data including images, videos and documents even when the partition cannot be recovered and most of the data is lost.

Cons

• Time-consuming to learn how to use both packages.
• DOS-based interface.

Alternatives

Recovery My Files Data Recovery Software is a useful recovery package to help rescue files that can no longer be accessed. Recuva is a free alternative from Piriform.

Conclusion

TestDisk & PhotoRec are good options to provide partition, boot ability, and file recovery with TestDisk, and prioritize image, video and document file recovery with PhotoRec.