TestDisk is a free, open-source disk analysis and recovery utility for the Mac OS X operating system. It is primarily designed to help recover lost storage partitions or reboot disks that won’t boot, even if these conditions are caused by buggy software, certain types of viruses or human errors (for example, forgetting to erase the hard partition table). Basically, this utility allows users to create an image of a faulty drive, lost or not, and then make the necessary repairs. This image can later be backed up and stored elsewhere, making it easier to recover than if the hard drive were completely corrupted.

However, it should be noted that there are some differences between this utility and other similar tools. First, it is not compatible with all Mac OS X operating systems. It requires a Mac-compatible PC or Mac laptop to operate. Windows users may also find this tool inconvenient as it does not work well with that operating system. Linux users can also expect a little more difficulty using this utility, mainly because most people use it as their main CD/DVD burning program.

This utility can recover fat32 boot sector, formatted partitions, external network drives, logical drives and Zip drives. It can also backup encrypted files, restore checksums, recover partially written files, and repair damaged files and folders. This utility is very useful in troubleshooting corrupted files, especially if they are part of a larger image or set of images and were accidentally deleted by the user or the operating system itself. While most users can foresee the need to perform a certain amount of disk repair or other system troubleshooting tasks with this software, it is still useful to know how to do it.