TestDisk and PhotoRec now have WAD/PK3/PK7 Recovery support in The Latest Beta

[AxelMoon]

Warning: It's still in Beta, while it may work and recover a good chunk of files use at your own risk!

It's not often I post on any forums like these, but I had requested some support from Christophe GRENIER to see if I could have some module formats that were missing to see if they could be added to his program for recovery because I had lot a lot of work due to one of those damn problems when a drive goes RAW format on you. I lost a TON of work because of this and that infuriated me. The Drive was still accessible, and programs for recovery produced no results on the files I needed. Bummer!

Then I noticed on PhotoRec/TestDisk's website that you can request support for things to be added, alright cool! So I exchanged a few emails with them here and there and back an forth and provided some source files for the MPTM tracker format. Support for that got added in beta 7.2!

However, when I was preparing all of that I remembered that it didn't pick up any of my wad/pk3/pk7 files and within a few emails and test files provided, there is now support for recovery for all of these filetypes now.

TestDisk/PhotoRec's website

Wad files will recover as wad files obviously
PK3 files will recover as .zip files
PK7 files will recover as .7z files respectively

The only issues with it currently are that it won't preserve the filename of the files, so you'd have to manually start searching through folders when you're recovering the file you're missing specifically.

Filenames will recover in patterns like f110606104.wad or the such, so you definitely have to do a little bit of digging. However it's nice to know that you  cna finally recover your stuff that you believe may have been lost for some time and save your bacon a bit. Just remember however that it's still in beta and not listed on the known filetypes yet for wads files on the wiki yet.

It is however in 7.2 listed under "Doom" for the filetypes you wish to recover with the program. It's just a little something I wanted the community to know in the case someone's lost a ton of work and been franticly searching for it (or may have given up a search on something older and feel there's maybe still a smidgen of a chance to get it back.

Note: Despite it's name, PhotoRec recovers way more than just photos. It's name doesn't really explain that too well, I know.

Edited February 3, 2021 by AxelMoon
Grammatical error

[LexiMax]

That's pretty dang nifty, thanks for doing the legwork.

[Grazza]

Thanks for keeping an eye on this gem of a utility. I don't need to use it often (and generally to help others who have had data misfortunes with camera memory cards), but this program can be a life-saver, and it is good to know it is still being developed and becoming even more useful.

[cybdmn]

I have used testdisk myself for recovering a friends external HDD, and it worked flawlessly. Definitely a life saver.

[Vorpal]

If you've lost something really precious, never mount the drive to boot from and don't perform any actions on the drive (like installing software to it). Best practice would be to use a hardware write/block device to freeze the state of the drive and prevent anything from writing over critical unallocated data. Photorec is legit, consider donating to the guy if it works!