Current news
============
6.9
TestDisk & PhotoRec 6.9 comes with numerous improvements:
- They are compatible with ntfsprogs 2.0, the latest library version for
accessing NTFS partitions, e2fsprogs 1.40.6, the latest library for accessing
ext2/ext3 partitions.
- EFI GUID Partition Table is now supported. EFI GPT is mainly used on Itanium,
MacBook and Mac Pro.
- Both utilities can use sudo if the user is not root, this functionnality will
be enabled for at least MacOSX, so users won't have to go into a command line.
- Improved Windows disk support, most internal USB card reader should now work.
- Disk model (ie. ATA ST3120026AS, _NEC DVD_RW ND-4550A...) are now reported
under Linux.
TestDisk
- New file system support has been added: encrypted LUKS, Mac HFSX, Linux Raid
md 1.0/1.1/1.2 (0.9 was already supported).
- It displays unicode filenames correctly, and can handle unicode filesnames
while copying files from an NTFS partition when supported by the underlying
libraries.
- It's now possible to copy files from a lost FAT partition found by TestDisk
(Already possible for NTFS).
- In the Advanced menu, TestDisk can create a raw/dd-like image of a partition.
PhotoRec
- For ext2/ext3 file systems, PhotoRec 6.9 can search in the whole space or in
unallocated space only. This feature was already available for FAT and NTFS
filesystem.
- It has better session support which allows a recovery to be stopped and
restarted later.
- New file formats are supported: Acronis True Image .TIB, AutoCAD's .DWG and
PowerTab .PTB, Cineon image file/SMTPE DPX .DPX, Comic Life .comicdoc, HP
Photosmart Photo Printing Album .albm, KeepAssX .KDB, Maya .MB and .MP,
Microsoft OneNOte .one file, Microsoft Visual Studio Resource file .RES,
Microsoft VB's .CLS, Outlook .MSG, QuickBook .FST, SketchUp .SKP, Vmware .vmdk,
WinSpec .SPE, Windows Enhanced MetaFile .emf, MS Windows Link .lnk, Internet
Explorer index.dat, Macintosh Picture .pct, SunPCI Disk Image,XBOX GTA San
Andreas Save File, Final Cut Pro .fcp and Digital Speech Standard .dss.
6.8
Version 6.8 is mainly a bugfix but some small improvements has been made to
both TestDisk and PhotoRec:
- Partition type is now autodetected.
- TestDisk and PhotoRec can now be used under screen, the screen manager with
VT100/ANSI terminal emulation.
TestDisk
HFS detection has been improved to avoid false positive.
TestDisk logs potential NTFS partition location from MFT & MFTMirr location
while rebuilding NTFS boot sector.
PhotoRec
Some important bugfixes (false positive problem, implementation bugs) have been
made in PhotoRec 6.8. JPG bruteforce recovery has been improved a little bit,
you can use it to recover more fragmented jpeg but it's very time consuming and
not 100% reliable, so it's still disabled by default.
.7z, .cab, .rar and .tar recovery have been improved, .dta and .spss file
formats have been added.
6.7
Both utilities are faster than previous versions: a better disk caching is
used in PhotoRec, a better way to handle the sector to scan is used in
TestDisk. Windows version of TestDisk and PhotoRec doesn't use
pread()/pwrite() cygwin implementation (A bug seems present).
TestDisk
TestDisk 6.7 handles partition created under Microsoft Vista.
Traditionally partitions were created on cylinder boundaries. Under Vista,
they are now independent of the disk geometry: partitions are aligned to 1
MB boundary, TestDisk now handles that. It also fixes how the advanced
menu works.
PhotoRec
PhotoRec 6.7 uses less CPU. It also adds support for 3ds max, Archive
.ace, CD Audio .cda, FastTrackerII Extended Module .xm, Linux archive .a,
Linux/Unix ELF binary, Mac OS .emlx mail format, Macomedia Compressed
Flash .swc, Macromedia .flv, Macromedia Freehand 5 (.fh5) & 10 (.fh10) and
InDesign .indd, Matroska .mkv, MP3 with ID3 header, MS cabinet archive
.cab, MSOffice "Open" XML .docx, .pptx, .xlsx, MS executable (PE), MS
Windows Metafile .wmf, NJStar .njx, Quickbooks .qbb and .qbw, Real Audio
.rm, registry config file .reg, RPM package .rpm, Windows registry header
detection and Event Log .evt
6.6
General Improvements
- Encase Expert Witness Compression Format is now supported, so Computer
Forensic Experts can use TestDisk and PhotoRec more easily.
- Under new Vista OS, harddisks are now being reported again.
TestDisk
- If LBA48 support seems missing (HD bigger than 130 GB not supported by
the OS), TestDisk will warn the user. This problem is common when a user
reinstalls his OS and forgets to install the latest service patches.
- NTFS: TestDisk should be able to list files from NTFS partitions even if
some filesystem corruption has occurred; more importantly, it will allow
the user to copy whatever file data it can as well.
- FAT: Improved heuristics to find the first FAT area during boot sector
rebuild.
PhotoRec
- A new method for handling fragmented data is now used, making recovery
more reliable and faster.
- PhotoRec can be set to search for files in FAT16/FAT32 unallocated space
only; which avoids wasting time recovering files that are still
accessible, making the recovery of 'lost files' much faster and more
efficient.
- New file formats have been added: .3g2 (Mov video family), .aif Apple
Audio, .all .cpr Cubase Song, .blend Blender, .cam Casio QV Digital Camera
Image, .flac Free Lossless Audio Codec, .mdf Microsoft SQL, .swf
Macromedia Flash and .vcf VCard (not confused with .txt anymore)
6.5
TestDisk
- A screen has been added to control the log file creation.
- It's now possible from TestDisk file listing to copy files from NTFS
partition to a selected directory.
- NTFS MFT can also be repaired in more cases.
- A compilation problem has been fixed with old version of libntfs.
- Documentation has been fixed, it now displays correctly with IE.
PhotoRec
- New file formats have been added: AppleWorks .cwk, DIF Digital Video .dv,
DjVu .djv, Finale .mus, Incredimail .imm, .imb, iTunes mhbd, MIDI .mid,
MS Backup, Real Media .rm & .ram, Reason .rns, ruby .rb, .xml
- File size detection for .bmp, .pdf, .gif, Office document has been improved.
- A endless loop bug and a memory leak have been fixed.
- The I/O cache engine now caches read failure, it will speedup some recovery.
6.4
Support for ReiserFS 4 has been added in TestDisk
PhotoRec detects new files formats and better recovery of jpeg, txt/html, zip...
Fixes numerous bugs.
6.3
Fix for 64 bits architecture and improved interface.
Photorec adds support for Quicken, OpenDocument, mp3, ogg,
StarOffice, Encapsulated PostScript, PostScript, gif, gz, mov file format
or better detection.
6.2
New User Interface
Disk cache and read ahead to improve performance
Endianess portability fix
6.1
TestDisk
Fix for Mac version
Remove an erroneous message after writing a partition without logical partition
6.0
TestDisk
Fix for Dos version and some cosmetic change
5.9
TestDisk
- User Interface has been improved
- Mac partition map is now supported
- FAT: better check for directory attribut
- FAT: fix a bug in expert mode
- FAT: fix directory listing time using timezone
- Linux Raid: fix regression from 5.8, Raid 1 is again detected.
- NTFS boot sector: copy boot sector over backup boot sector now works
Photorec
- Photorec now works on ext2/ext3 filesystem (Check Options)
- add support for Papyrus, 7zip, text file, OGG audio files, RAR archive recovery
- add a default file size limit of 2GB
- add support for ZIP files starting with PK00 (packed to removable disk)
5.8
TestDisk
- Add support for HFS+, UFS2 filesystem and Intel Solaris superblock
- Linux Raid: Add some code to detect Raid 5 earlier
- FAT: Update the cleaning FAT function to repair FAT table (Expert mode only)
- EXT2: e2fsprogs-1.36 parses the device name given in ext2fs_open, give a string instead of the io_channel.
- NTFS: Fix a bug in NTFS rebuilding introduced in 5.7
- Fix a memory freed problem when detecting if a partition can be Primary, Logical...
Photorec
- Recognize php header
- MPG format is using streaming
5.7
TestDisk
- Replace standard MBR i386 boot sector code by a GPL one
- HFS detection has been improved to avoid false positive
- FAT: add support for one FAT only (instead of usual 2) in directory listing
and boot sector rebuilding (need expert mode)
- FAT: Support for FAT without FAT12 (ie DOS 3.30), FAT16 or FAT32 mark.
- FAT12/16: Add the possibility to initialize FAT root directory (Delete everything,
Expert mode only)
- FAT: fix for directory listing in boot sector rebuilding.
- FAT32: Fix for last FAT sector while cleaning the FAT (Expert mode only)
- EXT2/EXT3: while listing filename permit to list file where inode information is unavaible.
- Doesn't halt if TestDisk can't create the log file
- configure.ac, compile.sh: remove --enable-debug option
- Modify Linux RPM spec file to get non-empty debug-info rpm
- Directory listing: little UI modification
- Dos version: fix read/write error message
Photorec 5.7
- add support for a bunch of other file format
- incremental directory name for recovery
- a lot of code cleaning
5.6
TestDisk
New features:
- Can list files from NTFS partition found using backup boot sector
- Display a warning if TestDisk think the logical geometry (CHS) is wrong
- Handle filesystem image (In Options, Partition type: None)
- Filesystem: HFS (minimal testing) and LVM2 support
- NetBSD and FreeBSD support
Improvements:
- Win32: Windows version is now as fast as other version.
Using FileRead() instead of read() is about 10 times faster.
Fixs:
- HD Geometry: the number of cylinders can be bigger than 65535
- BSD slice: display content even if crc is wrong
- FAT boot sector rebuilding: better support for FAT16 converted to FAT32
- NTFS boot sector rebuilding: better handle copy of MFT
- Win32: Windows version always creates a log file (was introduced in 5.3 but
boggus since 5.4)
Photorec 5.6
- Use libjpeg for a better recovery of lost jpeg files.
- Konica/Minolta raw (MRW) pictures recovery
- Canon raw (CRW) pictures recovery
- Minimal support for Sigma/Foveon: .X3F, Rollei (RDC), Fuji (RAF)
5.5
Fix FAT32 recovery using backup boot sector
Remove some debugging code
Upgrade to libntfs 1.9.4
Fix RPM spec file to get a working reiserfs support
5.4
New features:
- Option to backup unknown partition header.
- Save/Load current partition list
- handle sector size != 512
- XFS and CramFS support
Improvements:
- Interface has been improved.
- log libreiserfs errors in the log file
- can choose to minimize or maximize the extended partition before writing
- FAT32 root cluster rebuild improved (use first free cluster, mark it as used or/and EOC)
Fixs:
- ReiserFS and EXT2/EXT3 directory listing fix
- fix a bug with BeFS partition recovery
5.3
New features:
- When rebuilding FAT boot sector in expert mode, lets the user choose FAT locations.
Improvements:
- Exit if TestDisk can't create log file.
- Windows version always create log file.
Bug corrections:
- Fix superblock number displayed when telling the user to use e2fsck.
- Fix extended partition creation.
5.2
TestDisk now compiles and run under NT 4 and Windows 2000.
New features:
- can rebuild NTFS boot sector
- can recover JFS partition
- some advanced FAT32 functions have been added (Expert mode only)
Improvements:
- Can align partition to cylinder boundary or to head boundary.
- Doesn't abort while writing partitions if read failed.
- Doesn't let the user write an empty partition table.
