disktype

Disktype is a valuable tool for detecting the content format of a disk or disk image. It is written in C and can compile on any modern Unix flavour. It is self-contained and generally works without the need for special libraries or headers. However, system-dependent features can be utilised to gather additional information.

As of version 8, Disktype has advanced capabilities and can identify many different file systems, including FAT12/FAT16/FAT32, NTFS, HPFS, MFS, HFS, HFS Plus, ISO9660, UDF, ext2/ext3, Minix, ReiserFS, Reiser4, Linux romfs, Linux cramfs, Linux squashfs, UFS (some variations), SysV FS (some variations), JFS, XFS, Amiga FS/FFS, BeOS BFS, QNX4 FS, 3DO CD-ROM FS, Veritas VxFS, and Xbox DVD file system. Additionally, Disktype has the ability to identify partition tables and boot codes for systems such as DOS/PC style, Apple, Amiga "Rigid Disk," ATARI ST (AHDI3), BSD disklabel, Linux RAID physical disks, Linux LVM1 physical volumes, Linux LVM2 physical volumes, Solaris SPARC disklabel, Solaris x86 disklabel (vtoc), LILO, GRUB, SYSLINUX, ISOLINUX, Linux kernel, FreeBSD loader, Sega Dreamcast (?), and Windows/MS-DOS boot loader.

Disktype can also identify compression formats like gzip, compress, and bzip2, as well as archive formats such as tar, cpio, bar, and dump/restore. Even virtual PC hard disk images, raw CD images (.bin), Apple UDIF disk images (limited), and Linux swap files are supported.

Disktype's latest release has added the detection and recognition of Amiga SFS file systems and other structures like Linux cloop (detection only), EFI GPT, BeOS boot loader, and improved existing file systems like Amiga FS/FFS, Amiga PFS, and Linux squashfs. Additionally, it has made enhancements to Amiga "Rigid Disk" partitioning, LILO, and ISO9660 El Torito boot loaders. Disktype is a valuable tool for anyone who needs to identify disk or disk image content formats.