Advanced

Only for expert use in trying to recover and repair OS Boot sectors!

TestDisk let you manipulate the boot sector of FAT and NTFS partitions. Select the partition you want to modify and choose Boot.

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If the boot sector and backup boot sector mismatches (FAT32 and NTFS only), you can copy overwrite the backup boot sector with the boot sector or vice versa. You can also rebuild FAT boot sector or dump the boot sector content.

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To rebuild a FAT boot sector, TestDisk assumes that

The steps are

If FAT12 or FAT16 is found, assumes there is only one reserved sector. If it's the second FAT, deduce the the fat length. If beginning of FAT32 first fat is found at sector 32 or 33, deduce the number of reserved sectors.

assumes the first two are the two copies of the FAT. Deduce the number of reserved sectors and fat length.

use inode of "." directory entries to get the cluster size and deduce where the first cluster begin. From the number of cluster, deduce if it's a FAT12, FAT16 or FAT32. If FAT12 or FAT16, assume there is only one reserved sector. Try to find the number of directories entree (512 by default). Deduce the FAT length.

the user can also list the files of the FAT partition

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