PhotoRec vs TestDisk
PhotoRec
cgsecurity.org
TestDisk
cgsecurity.orgSide by side
| Figure | PhotoRec | TestDisk |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Data recovery software | 8.7 (#11) | 8.7 (#10) |
| Spec score · SD card recovery software | 8.6 (#8) | 8.5 (#12) |
| Spec score · Photo recovery software | 8.6 (#8) | 8.5 (#12) |
| Spec score · Photo Recovery Software | 8.3 (#12) | 7.9 (#23) |
| Spec score · SD Card Recovery Software | 8.2 (#16) | 7.8 (#27) |
| File recovery | PhotoRec recovers lost files, including videos, documents, archives, and pictures, from disks, CD-ROMs, and digital-camera memory. | It can undelete files from FAT, exFAT, NTFS, and ext2, and copy files from deleted FAT, exFAT, NTFS, and ext2/ext3/ext4 partitions. |
| Founded | 1998 | 1998 |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Memory card recovery | Yes | Yes |
| Operating systems | Windows; Linux; macOS; DOS; FreeBSD; NetBSD; OpenBSD; Solaris; other Unix systems | Windows; macOS; Linux; DOS; FreeBSD; NetBSD; OpenBSD; SunOS |
| Platforms | The maker lists Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Sun Solaris, and Mac OS X, and says PhotoRec can be compiled on almost every Unix system. | The maker lists Windows, Windows Server, Linux, Mac OS X, DOS, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and SunOS among supported systems. |
| Privacy | CGSecurity says TestDisk and PhotoRec do not connect to the Internet or send information about the user, computer, or data. | The maker says TestDisk does not connect to the internet or send information about the user, computer, or data. |
| RAID recovery | Yes | Yes |
| Recovery sources | hard disks; CD-ROMs; memory cards; USB memory drives; DD raw images; EnCase E01 images | hard drives; USB drives; memory cards; disk images; DAS; SAN; Linux RAID devices |
| Support | Users can seek help on the PhotoRec forum, send suggestions to the developer, or submit a bug report. | Users can request support through the forum by posting a problem description, the testdisk.log file, and information about previous partitions. |
Plans
In their own words
PhotoRec
PhotoRec is a free file recovery program for retrieving lost videos, documents, archives, and pictures from storage media and disk images. It searches the underlying data instead of relying on the file system, which can help after file-system damage or reformatting. It recognizes more than 480 file extensions across about 300 file families, and listed file systems include FAT, NTFS, exFAT, ext2/ext3/ext4, and HFS+.
Supported sources include hard disks, CD-ROMs, memory cards, USB drives, raw disk images, and EnCase E01 images. PhotoRec runs on Windows, Linux, macOS, DOS, several BSD systems, Solaris, and other Unix systems. It accesses the recovery drive or card in read-only mode; recovered files should go to a different partition. The portable download runs after extracting its archive, without an installer. QPhotoRec provides a graphical interface, while PhotoRec can also run from scripts or batch files with command-line options. The maker says it usually cannot recover original filenames and does not work well with ReiserFS.
TestDisk
TestDisk is free, open-source software for recovering lost partitions and helping disks boot again when faulty software or human error causes the problem. It can repair partition tables, recover deleted partitions, rebuild or restore FAT and NTFS boot sectors, fix FAT tables, and repair an MFT using its mirror. For file recovery, it can undelete files from FAT, exFAT, NTFS and ext2, or copy files from deleted FAT, exFAT, NTFS and ext2/ext3/ext4 partitions. Listed partition-recovery formats also include APFS, HFS+, XFS and ZFS. It works with hard drives, USB drives, memory cards, disk images, DAS, SAN and Linux RAID devices. The portable application is used by extracting its files; no installer is required. Listed operating systems include Windows, macOS, Linux, DOS, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD and SunOS. TestDisk is licensed under GNU GPL v2 or later. The maker says it does not connect to the internet or send information about the user, computer or data. The download page lists version 7.2 dated February 22, 2024, and 7.3-WIP as beta.