testdisk ☆

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Description:
Powerful free data recovery utility

Type: Formula | Tracked Since: Dec 28, 2025

Links: Homepage | formulae.brew.sh

Category: System utilities

Tags: data-recovery forensics disk-utility partition-recovery cli

Install: brew install testdisk

About:
TestDisk is a powerful open-source data recovery utility designed to recover lost partitions and make non-booting disks bootable again. It can also be used to recover deleted files from FAT, NTFS, ext2, and other filesystems. The tool operates at a low level, bypassing the filesystem to directly analyze the disk structure for comprehensive recovery capabilities.

Key Features:

Partition table recovery and repair
File undeletion from various filesystems (FAT, NTFS, ext2/3/4)
Fix boot sector issues and rebuild MBR
Cross-platform support (Linux, macOS, Windows, BSD)
Command-line interface for low-level disk operations

Use Cases:

Recovering accidentally deleted partitions on hard drives
Restoring access to disks with corrupted boot sectors
Retrieving deleted files from formatted or damaged storage media

Alternatives:

PhotoRec – Companion tool by same developer; focuses on file carving rather than partition recovery
Recuva – Windows-only GUI tool; easier to use but less powerful for low-level partition recovery

Version History

Detected	Version	Rev	Change	Commit
Sep 12, 2025 4:23am		0	VERSION_BUMP	5ea95a2f
Nov 18, 2022 1:58pm		0	VERSION_BUMP	25bb2d93