testdisk howto

How to use testdisk




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peter:~ # testdisk /dev/sda2


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TestDisk 6.13, Data Recovery Utility, November 2011
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
http://www.cgsecurity.org

  TestDisk is free software, and
comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.

Select a media (use Arrow keys, then press Enter):
>Disk /dev/sda2 - 524 MB / 500 MiB - Hitachi HDS5C3030ALA630


>[Proceed ]  [  Quit  ]

Note: Disk capacity must be correctly detected for a successful recovery.
If a disk listed above has incorrect size, check HD jumper settings, BIOS
detection, and install the latest OS patches and disk drivers.

 => hit enter
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TestDisk 6.13, Data Recovery Utility, November 2011
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
http://www.cgsecurity.org


Disk /dev/sda2 - 524 MB / 500 MiB - Hitachi HDS5C3030ALA630

Please select the partition table type, press Enter when done.
 [Intel  ] Intel/PC partition
 [EFI GPT] EFI GPT partition map (Mac i386, some x86_64...)
 [Humax  ] Humax partition table
 [Mac    ] Apple partition map
>[None   ] Non partitioned media
 [Sun    ] Sun Solaris partition
 [XBox   ] XBox partition
 [Return ] Return to disk selection


Note: Do NOT select 'None' for media with only a single partition. It's very
rare for a drive to be 'Non-partitioned'.


 => hit enter (I picked a partition, sda2, and it is not a partitioned partition, so it's None)
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TestDisk 6.13, Data Recovery Utility, November 2011
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
http://www.cgsecurity.org


Disk /dev/sda2 - 524 MB / 500 MiB - CHS 63 255 63

 [ Analyse  ] Analyse current partition structure and search for lost partitions
>[ Advanced ] Filesystem Utils
 [ Geometry ] Change disk geometry
 [ Options  ] Modify options
 [ Quit     ] Return to disk selection

Note: Correct disk geometry is required for a successful recovery. 'Analyse'
process may give some warnings if it thinks the logical geometry is mismatched.

 => hit enter (since it's a filesystem, not a disk, so no need to scan for geometry, partitions, etc.)
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TestDisk 6.13, Data Recovery Utility, November 2011
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
http://www.cgsecurity.org

Disk /dev/sda2 - 524 MB / 500 MiB - CHS 63 255 63

     Partition                  Start        End    Size in sectors
>   P ext4                     0   0  1    63 188 61    1024000 [suseboot]

 [  Type  ] >[Superblock]  [  List  ]  [Image Creation]  [  Quit  ]
                    Locate ext2/ext3/ext4 backup superblock

 => This is the stupid screen where "Superblock" is default. Why the hell do I care about the superblock? It's meaningless to me
    Hit the right arrow to select "List"


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TestDisk 6.13, Data Recovery Utility, November 2011
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
http://www.cgsecurity.org

Disk /dev/sda2 - 524 MB / 500 MiB - CHS 63 255 63

     Partition                  Start        End    Size in sectors
>   P ext4                     0   0  1    63 188 61    1024000 [suseboot]

 [  Type  ]  [Superblock] >[  List  ]  [Image Creation]  [  Quit  ]
                              List and copy files

 => notice the ">" moved to [ List ]
    hit enter
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TestDisk 6.13, Data Recovery Utility, November 2011
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
http://www.cgsecurity.org
   P ext4                     0   0  1    63 188 61    1024000 [suseboot]
Directory /

>drwxr-xr-x     0     0      5120 17-Jun-2014 09:45 .
 drwxr-xr-x     0     0      5120 17-Jun-2014 09:45 ..
 ?---------     0     0         0                   grub
 lrwxrwxrwx     0     0        33 11-Jun-2014 10:09 sysctl.conf-3.7.10-1.1-desktop
 -rw-r--r--     0     0    620544 27-Mar-2014 10:11 message
 -rw-r--r--     0     0    746580 12-May-2014 17:28 vmlinux-3.7.10-1.1-desktop.gz
 -rw-r--r--     0     0         0 17-Jun-2014 09:45 config-3.7.10-1.1-desktop
 -rw-r--r--     0     0    176760 28-Jan-2013 07:36 memtest.bin
 -rw-r--r--     0     0   2681728  4-Feb-2014 00:08 boot.readme
 -rw-r--r--     0     0         0 17-Jun-2014 09:45 symvers-3.7.10-1.1-desktop.gz

 [...]
                                                   Next
Use Right to change directory, h to hide deleted files
    q to quit, : to select the current file, a to select all files
    C to copy the selected files, c to copy the current file

 => hover on a directory, hit enter to go inside
    or hover on a file, hit c to copy it somewhere

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