Hard disk software

process of salvaging inaccessible data from corrupted or damaged secondary storage

command on Unix and Unix-like operating systems

The system utility fsck (file system check) is a tool for checking the consistency of a file system in Unix and Unix-like operating systems, such as Linux, macOS, and FreeBSD. The equivalent programs on MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows are CHKDSK, SFC, and SCANDISK.

CHKDSK (short for "check disk") is a shell command that verifies the data integrity of the file system on a volume (usually a partition) and attempts to fix logical errors software-level problems with a filesystem (or its metadata) as a result of prior software malfunction (e.g. crashes) or irregular use (e.g. hard resets). Logical errors are contrasted with and usually less severe than hardware-level errors, which can not be fixed with CHKDSK and may instead require specialized data recovery software or hardware service or replacement. Although the name ends with "DSK" as an abbreviation for

disk diagnostic utility for MS-DOS and Windows 9x

TestDisk is a free and open-source data recovery utility that helps users recover lost partitions or repair corrupted filesystems. TestDisk can collect detailed information about a corrupted drive, which can then be sent to a technician for further analysis. TestDisk supports DOS, Microsoft Windows (i.e. NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Server 2008, Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Windows 10), Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, SunOS, and MacOS. TestDisk handles non-partitioned and partitioned media. In particular, it recognizes the GUID Partition Table (GPT), Apple partition map, PC/Intel BIOS par

PhotoRec is a free and open-source utility software for data recovery with text-based user interface using data carving techniques, designed to recover lost files from various digital camera memory, hard disk and CD-ROM. It can recover the files with more than 480 file extensions (about 300 file families). It is also possible to add custom file signature to detect less known files.

thumb|300px|The Windows 7 diskpart command thumb|300px|The ReactOS diskpart command In computing, diskpart is a command-line disk partitioning utility included in Windows XP and later Microsoft operating systems, replacing its predecessor, fdisk. The command is also available in ReactOS.

software for Apple macOS

DOS, Windows, or OS/2 command for formatting a computer disk

EnCase is the shared technology within a suite of digital investigations products by Guidance Software (acquired by OpenText in 2017). The software comes in several products designed for forensic, cyber security, security analytics, and e-discovery use.

GNU ddrescue is a data recovery tool for disk drives, DVDs, CDs, and other digital storage media. It copies raw blocks of storage, such as disk sectors, from one device or file to another, while handling read errors in an intelligent manner to minimize data loss by scraping good sectors from partially read blocks.

SmartDrive (or SMARTDRV) is a disk caching program shipped with MS-DOS versions 4.01 through 6.22 and Windows 3.0 through Windows 3.11. It improves data transfer rates by storing frequently accessed data in random-access memory (RAM).

CrystalDiskMark is an open source disk drive benchmark tool for Microsoft Windows from Crystal Dew World. Based on Microsoft's MIT-licensed Diskspd tool, this graphical benchmark is commonly used for testing the performance of solid-state storage. It works by reading and writing through the filesystem in a volume-dependent way. It generates read/write speeds in sequential and random positions with varying numbers of queues and threads. Solid-state drives tend to excel at random IO, as unlike hard drives, they do not need to seek for the specific position to read from or write to.

software tools for forensics analysis on volume and filesystem data

software utility