mkntfs - create an NTFS file system
mkntfs [
options]
device
[
number-of-sectors]
mkntfs [ -C ] [ -c cluster-size ] [ -F ] [ -f ] [ -H heads
] [ -h ] [ -I ] [ -L volume-label ] [ -l ] [ -n ] [ -p part-start-sect ] [ -Q ] [
-q ] [ -S sectors-per-track ] [ -s sector-size ] [ -T ] [ -V ] [ -v ] [ -z mft-zone-multiplier
] [ --debug ] device [ number-of-sectors ]
mkntfs is used to create
an NTFS file system on a device (usually a disk partition) or file.
device
is the special file corresponding to the device (e.g
/dev/hdXX).
number-of-sectors
is the number of blocks on the device. If omitted,
mkntfs automagically
figures the file system size.
Below is a summary of all the options
that
mkntfs accepts. Nearly all options have two equivalent names. The
short name is preceded by
- and the long name is preceded by
--. Any single
letter options, that don’t take an argument, can be combined into a single
command, e.g.
-fv is equivalent to
-f -v. Long named options can be abbreviated
to any unique prefix of their name.
- -f, --fast, -Q, --quick
- Perform
quick (fast) format. This will skip both zeroing of the volume and bad sector
checking.
- -L, --label STRING
- Set the volume label for the filesystem.
- -C, --enable-compression
- Enable compression on the volume.
- -n, --no-action
- Causes mkntfs to not actually
create a filesystem, but display what it would do if it were to create
a filesystem. All steps of the format are carried out except the actual
writing to the device.
- -c, --cluster-size BYTES
- Specify the
size of clusters in bytes. Valid cluster size values are powers of two,
with at least 256, and at most 65536 bytes per cluster. If omitted, mkntfs
uses 4096 bytes as the default cluster size.
Note that the default cluster
size is set to be at least equal to the sector size as a cluster cannot
be smaller than a sector. Also, note that values greater than 4096 have
the side effect that compression is disabled on the volume (due to limitations
in the NTFS compression algorithm currently in use by Windows).
- -s, --sector-size
BYTES
- Specify the size of sectors in bytes. Valid sector size values are
256, 512, 1024, 2048 and 4096 bytes per sector. If omitted, mkntfs attempts
to determine the sector-size automatically and if that fails a default of
512 bytes per sector is used.
- -p, --partition-start SECTOR
- Specify the partition
start sector. The maximum is 4294967295 (2^32-1). If omitted, mkntfs attempts
to determine part-start-sect automatically and if that fails a default of
0 is used. Note that part-start-sect is required for Windows to be able to
boot from the created volume.
- -H, --heads NUM
- Specify the number of heads. The
maximum is 65535 (0xffff). If omitted, mkntfs attempts to determine the
number of heads automatically and if that fails a default of 0 is used.
Note that heads is required for Windows to be able to boot from the created
volume.
- -S, --sectors-per-track NUM
- Specify the number of sectors per track. The
maximum is 65535 (0xffff). If omitted, mkntfs attempts to determine the
number of sectors-per-track automatically and if that fails a default of
0 is used. Note that sectors-per-track is required for Windows to be able
to boot from the created volume.
- -z, --mft-zone-multiplier NUM
- Set the MFT zone
multiplier, which determines the size of the MFT zone to use on the volume.
The MFT zone is the area at the beginning of the volume reserved for the
master file table (MFT), which stores the on disk inodes (MFT records).
It is noteworthy that small files are stored entirely within the inode;
thus, if you expect to use the volume for storing large numbers of very
small files, it is useful to set the zone multiplier to a higher value.
Note, that the MFT zone is resized on the fly as required during operation
of the NTFS driver but choosing a good value will reduce fragmentation.
Valid values are 1, 2, 3 and 4. The values have the following meaning:
| MFT
zone | MFT zone size |
| multiplier | (% of volume size) |
| 1 | 12.5% (default) |
| 2 | 25.0% |
| 3 | 37.5% |
| 4 | 50.0% |
- -T,
--zero-time
- Fake the time to be 00:00:00 UTC, Jan 1, 1970 instead of the current
system time. This is only really useful for debugging purposes.
- -I, --no-indexing
- Disable content indexing on the volume. (This is only meaningful on Windows
2000 and later. Windows NT 4.0 and earlier ignore this as they do not implement
content indexing at all.)
- -F, --force
- Force mkntfs to run, even if the specified
device is not a block special device, or appears to be mounted.
- -q,
--quiet
- Quiet execution; only errors are written to stderr, no output to
stdout occurs at all. Useful if mkntfs is run in a script.
- -v, --verbose
- Verbose
execution.
- --debug
- Really verbose execution; includes the verbose output from
the -v option as well as additional output useful for debugging mkntfs.
- -V, --version
- Print the version number of mkntfs and exit.
- -l, --license
- Print the licensing information of mkntfs and exit.
- -h, --help
- Show a list
of options with a brief description of each one.
If you find a bug please
send an email describing the problem to the development team:
linux-ntfs-dev@lists.sourceforge.net
mkntfs was written by Anton Altaparmakov,
Richard Russon, Erik Sornes and Szabolcs Szakacsits.
mkntfs
is part of the
ntfsprogs package and is available from:
http://www.linux-ntfs.org/content/view/19/37
The manual pages are available
online at:
http://man.linux-ntfs.org/
Note: Only ntfs-related man-pages are to be found on this server.
If you are looking for other man-pages, please try
man <pagename> on your own computer or search an online-repository like
http://www.linuxcommand.org/superman_pages.php.
badblocks(8)
,
ntfsprogs(8)
Table of Contents