3.1. Compilation environment

TestDisk uses several libraries if available:

libncurses - Required, TestDisk and PhotoRec use a text user interface, Ncurses library and development files must be available.

Ext2fs library - Optional, used by TestDisk to list files from ext2/ext3/ext4 partition and by PhotoRec to be able to carve the free space from an ext2/ext3 partition instead of the whole partition

EWF library - Optional, TestDisk and PhotoRec use it to access Expert Witness Compression Format files (e.g. Encase files)

Iconv - Optional, used to handle Unicode filenames

Jpeg library - Optional, used by PhotoRec to improved JPEG recovery rate

NTFS library - Optional, used by TestDisk to list files from NTFS partition

Reiserfs library - Optional, used by TestDisk to list files from reiserfs partition

zlib library - Optional, used by PhotoRec to decompress gzipped content

Qt5 library - Optional, required for QPhotoRec and to update the configure script.

3.1.1. Linux

Debian/Ubuntu: apt-get install build-essential e2fslibs-dev libewf-dev libncurses5-dev libncursesw5-dev ntfs-3g-dev libjpeg-dev uuid-dev zlib1g-dev qtbase5-dev qttools5-dev-tools pkg-config dh-autoreconf git

RHEL/CentOS 6 or later: yum install @buildsys-build desktop-file-utils e2fsprogs-devel libewf-devel libjpeg-devel libuuid-devel ncurses-devel ntfs-3g-devel qt-devel qt5-qtbase-devel zlib-devel git

Fedora: dnf install @buildsys-build desktop-file-utils e2fsprogs-devel libewf-devel libjpeg-devel libuuid-devel ncurses-devel ntfs-3g-devel qt-devel qt5-qtbase-devel zlib-devel git

3.1.2. macOS

Install Xcode

xcode-select --install

Install brew

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)"

Install pkg-config, libjpeg-turbo and wget via brew

brew install pkg-config libjpeg-turbo wget

Download wanted library (Adjust the version)

wget -N http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/e2fsprogs/e2fsprogs-1.46.2.tar.gz
wget -N https://download.tuxera.com/opensource/ntfs-3g_ntfsprogs-2017.3.23.tgz
wget -N https://www.cgsecurity.org/testdisk-7.2.tar.bz2

Decompress and compile them (Replace /User/kmaster by the correct path)

tar xzf e2fsprogs-1.46.2.tar.gz
tar xzf ntfs-3g_ntfsprogs-2017.3.23.tgz
tar xzf testdisk-7.2.tar.bz2
cd e2fsprogs-1.46.2 && ./configure && make && cd ..
cd ntfs-3g_ntfsprogs-2017.3.23 && ./configure --disable-ntfs-3g --disable-nfconv && make && cd ..
mkdir -p testdisk
../testdisk-7.2/configure  --disable-qt \
  --with-ext2fs-lib=/Users/kmaster/e2fsprogs-1.46.2/lib \
  --with-ext2fs-includes=/Users/kmaster/e2fsprogs-1.46.2/lib \
  --with-ntfs3g-lib=/Users/kmaster/ntfs-3g_ntfsprogs-2017.3.23/libntfs-3g/.libs/ \
  --with-ntfs3g-includes=/Users/kmaster/ntfs-3g_ntfsprogs-2017.3.23/include/ \
  --with-jpeg-lib=/usr/local/opt/jpeg-turbo/lib \
  --with-jpeg-includes=/usr/local/opt/jpeg-turbo/include
make
cd ..

3.1.3. Windows

3.1.3.1. cygwin

Cygwin https://cygwin.com/ is a large collection of GNU and Open Source tools which provide functionality similar to a Linux distribution on Windows, it includes the GCC compiler. A DLL (cygwin1.dll) provides substantial POSIX API functionality, such functions may be required by some libraries that TestDisk or PhotoRec can use.

3.1.3.2. MinGW-w64

MinGW-w64 https://www.mingw-w64.org/ is a free and open source software development environment for creating Microsoft Windows applications. It provides GCC for Windows 64 & 32 bits.