Ubuntu Tips n Tricks

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Recover Lost or Deleted Partitions in Linux Using TestDisk

Posted: 28 Sep 2010 05:33 AM PDT

Recover Lost or Deleted Partitions in Linux Using TestDisk: If you have a lost or non-bootable hard disk drive partition due to viruses, faulty software, or plain stupidity (just kidding), you will need a data recovery software to help you save your precious data. One of the hard drive data recovery tools that I can highly recommend is TestDisk.

TestDisk is capable of fixing partition table and recovering deleted partition. It can fix FAT and MFT tables, recover FAT32 and NTFS boot sector from its backup, rebuild FAT12/FAT16/FAT32 and NTFS boot sector, locate ext2/ext3/ext4 backup superblock, undelete files from FAT, NTFS and ext2 filesystem, and copy files from deleted FAT, NTFS and ext2/ext3/ext4 partitions.

TestDisk is designed for both novice and expert users. For those who have little or no knowledge about data recovery procedures, it can be used to collect detailed information about a non-booting drive that can then be sent to a trusty technician for additional analysis.

Although TestDisk runs in the terminal, it is fairly easy to use. There is no need to remember various commands as you will be guided with questions and prompts and will only need to use the Enter and Arrow keys to get going.

Starting TestDisk

Selecting a hard disk to scan

The next time your hard disk crashes and then just disappears or can't be booted anymore, don't panic because you can always use a hard drive data recovery tool like TestDisk.