TestDisk Step by Step Guide

TestDisk is very powerful and free partition table recovery software. Its very easy to use, but before use you must read the full article and do as it is in the same time by reading this. To understand the working principal of TestDisk we illustrate the example and this example guides you step by step to recover a missing partition and repair a corrupted one.

Example Problem and its solution:

Suppose in our system have 60GB hard disk, that containing 3 partition and unfortunately the boot sector
of the primary NTFS partition or a logical NTFS partition has been damaged or deleted. And on start of computer a error massage is displayed that boot partition is missing.

So through TestDisk software you can easily rewrite the corrupted NTFS boot sector and recover the deleted logical NTFS partition. You can recover the other partition type such as FAT by the same steps.

FIRST THING YOU DO…

As you know our hard disk’s primary partition that contained an operating system, is damaged and you can’t boot your system. So first of all you connect the hard disk that was damaged to a serviceable computer as a secondary drive and boot the serviceable computer.  When computer start up you look the drive in my computer that is available but nothing to show in drives. So you do nothing to that damaged drives if computer ask you for formatting.

RUN THE TESTDISK.

First of all download the softwar TestDisk. It is in Zip format, extract the files and then run the application testdisk_win in the containing folder as shown in figure 1

 

You must remember that you have administration privileges to run this application.

After running the application you see the TestDisk window that just like command prompt of DOS as shown the figure 2.

Hare are some important points for using TestDisk:

• To navigate in TestDisk , use the Arrow and Pageup/PageDown keys.
• To proceed, confirm your choice with Enter key.
• To return to previous display or quit TestDisk, use the q(Quit) key.
• To save modifications, you confirm first by pressing y (Yes) and Enter key.
• To write partition data to the MBR. You must choose the “Write” selection and press Enter key.

Now start from figure 2, use the down arrow key and select the [No Log] option. And press Enter key.

Now Disk Selection option is shown as shown in figure 3:

 

Hare you look the drive that have damaged, you recognize through their size and also it part number. As you show in the figure 3 the 60GB hard drive is selected, select your require drive by up and down arrow keys and Press the Enter key for Proceed.

Next is the Partition table type selection option is shown, 

Select the patition table type, in many cases the default type is Intel, so press the Enter key for Proceed.

In next window select the [Analyse  ] option and press the Enter key. See figure 5:

Now the application will analyze your drive and wait for movement until the current partition structure is listed, see figure 6:

As you see in the figure 6 the first partition P is listed twice, which shows corrupted partition and on boot the system will not recognize the correct boot partition.  And next see only one logical partition is shown, third one is missing so you now select the Quick Search and press Enter key to proceed.

Quick Search option is now showing the figure 7:

Now hare you see the two Logical partitions labeled L. select one by one and press p to list the files in your partitions, one of them is listed the correct files and folders and one of them is shown corrupted file system message. So now that partition which shown the correct files and folders, correct one’s partition highlighted the partition and press Enter to Continue.

 

As you see in figure 8, the logical partition is listed, but hare a first one is still missing that is backup boot sector start with * sign. So now you select the Deeper Search which is already selected and press Enter to proceed.

Deeper Search shows the results after searching the futher partitions as shown below figure 9:

As you see in figure 9 the first partition was found, start with * sign and it’s the backup boot sector, Partition listed as D will not be recovered. In figure 9 the second and third partition is listed as D, one of them is correct and one is curroupted. Highlighted the D partition one by one and press p for listed the partition, if the massage is shown as in figure 10 below then:

Its means this partition is corrupted, Quit and now highlighted the second one marked as D, and press the p for listed the files: and shows the file and folders in a list shape as shown below figure 11:

Yes your files are listed, you found the correct partition.

Press q for quit and go back to the previous display.

The available status is now Primary boot able start with *,  Logical start with L, and Deleted start with D.

Now highlighted the D partition that is correct one, change the status of selected partition from D to L. using left and right arrow keys. As shown below figure 12:

 

Some important point to be remembers there:

Some important points are listed below, that is very important to remember at this point, how you recognize the problems.

• Your analyzing result is may be different with our result according to your drive.
• First thing is that your primary bootable will always start with * sign. And its starting address is always 0  0  1 , as shown the figure 13 below:

• Second point to be remember is that the Extended LBA Partiton is always start with latter E and starting address is always ( any number ,   0     1 ) as shown figure 7 its (2550    0    1 ).
• Third point to be remember is that the Primary partition is always start with latter L and starting address is always ( any number,   1      1).

Press Enter to Proceed.

Now it time to write the new partition structure.

The Extended partition is atomically set TestDisk recognizes this using different partition structure.

If all partitions are listed and only in this case, highlight Write and press Enter key and then y for conform.

Now a error massage is shown that NTFS BOOT SECTOR RECOVERY and boot sector if the first partition named partition 1 is still damaged. As shown the figure below:

Now fix this problem, select Backup BS, press Enter and y to confirm and next OK.

The boot sector and its backup are now OK and identical, and successfully recovered massage is displayed.

Now quit and restart the computer. Your data is in original position.

Thanks for reading.