Guides

Practical walkthroughs to help you get the most from TestDisk. Follow these tutorials to recover lost partitions, fix boot issues, and bring unbootable drives back to life.

Getting started

Before you begin, stop all write operations to the affected drive. Run TestDisk from a separate storage device or boot from removable media when working on the primary system disk.

Common workflows

• Create a log, select the target disk, and choose the correct partition table type.
• Analyze the current structure, then run a Quick Search or Deeper Search for lost partitions.
• Review found structures carefully before writing any changes to the partition table.
• Reboot or remount the drive to verify that the restored layout is accessible.

Boot sector repair

TestDisk can rebuild FAT and NTFS boot sectors from backup copies when available. It can also fix FAT allocation tables that have been damaged by malware or unexpected power loss.

File recovery basics

Use the Advanced menu to copy files from a damaged or deleted partition before attempting deeper repairs. For signature-based file carving, use PhotoRec instead.

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