1MKNTFS(8)                   System Manager's Manual                  MKNTFS(8)
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NAME

6       mkntfs - create an NTFS file system
7

SYNOPSIS

9       mkntfs [options] device [number-of-sectors]
10
11       mkntfs  [  -C ] [ -c cluster-size ] [ -F ] [ -f ] [ -H heads ] [ -h ] [
12       -I ] [ -L volume-label ] [ -l ] [ -n ] [ -p part-start-sect ] [ -Q ]  [
13       -q ] [ -S sectors-per-track ] [ -s sector-size ] [ -T ] [ -U ] [ -V ] [
14       -v ] [ -z mft-zone-multiplier ] [ --debug ] device [  number-of-sectors
15       ]
16

DESCRIPTION

18       mkntfs  is  used  to  create an NTFS file system on a device (usually a
19       disk partition) or file.  device is the special file  corresponding  to
20       the device (e.g /dev/hdXX).  number-of-sectors is the number of sectors
21       on the device. If omitted, mkntfs automagically figures the file system
22       size.
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OPTIONS

25       Below  is a summary of all the options that mkntfs accepts.  Nearly all
26       options have two equivalent names.  The short name is preceded by - and
27       the long name is preceded by --.  Any single letter options, that don't
28       take an argument, can be combined into a single command, e.g.   -fv  is
29       equivalent  to  -f  -v.   Long  named options can be abbreviated to any
30       unique prefix of their name.
31
32   Basic options
33       -f, --fast, -Q, --quick
34              Perform quick (fast) format. This will skip both zeroing of  the
35              volume and bad sector checking.
36
37       -L, --label STRING
38              Set the volume label for the filesystem.
39
40       -C, --enable-compression
41              Enable compression on the volume.
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43       -n, --no-action
44              Causes  mkntfs  to not actually create a filesystem, but display
45              what it would do if it were to create a filesystem. All steps of
46              the  format  are  carried  out  except the actual writing to the
47              device.
48
49   Advanced options
50       -c, --cluster-size BYTES
51              Specify the size of clusters in bytes. Valid cluster size values
52              are  powers of two, with at least 256, and at most 2097152 bytes
53              (2MB) per cluster. If omitted, mkntfs uses  4096  bytes  as  the
54              default cluster size.
55
56              Note  that  the default cluster size is set to be at least equal
57              to the sector size as a cluster cannot be smaller than a sector.
58              Also,  note  that  values greater than 4096 have the side effect
59              that compression is disabled on the volume (due  to  limitations
60              in the NTFS compression algorithm currently in use by Windows).
61
62       -s, --sector-size BYTES
63              Specify  the  size of sectors in bytes. Valid sector size values
64              are 256, 512, 1024, 2048 and 4096 bytes per sector. If  omitted,
65              mkntfs  attempts  to determine the sector-size automatically and
66              if that fails a default of 512 bytes per sector is used.
67
68       -p, --partition-start SECTOR
69              Specify the partition start sector. The  maximum  is  4294967295
70              (2^32-1).    If    omitted,   mkntfs   attempts   to   determine
71              part-start-sect automatically and if that fails or the value  is
72              oversized,  a  default  of  0  is  used. The partition is usable
73              despite  a  wrong   value,   however   note   that   a   correct
74              part-start-sect  is required for Windows to be able to boot from
75              the created volume.
76
77       -H, --heads NUM
78              Specify the number of heads. The maximum is 65535  (0xffff).  If
79              omitted,  mkntfs attempts to determine the number of heads auto‐
80              matically and if that fails a default of 0 is  used.  Note  that
81              heads  is  required for Windows to be able to boot from the cre‐
82              ated volume.
83
84       -S, --sectors-per-track NUM
85              Specify the number of sectors per track. The  maximum  is  65535
86              (0xffff). If omitted, mkntfs attempts to determine the number of
87              sectors-per-track automatically and if that fails a default of 0
88              is  used. Note that sectors-per-track is required for Windows to
89              be able to boot from the created volume.
90
91       -z, --mft-zone-multiplier NUM
92              Set the MFT zone multiplier, which determines the  size  of  the
93              MFT  zone  to use on the volume. The MFT zone is the area at the
94              beginning of the volume  reserved  for  the  master  file  table
95              (MFT),  which  stores  the  on disk inodes (MFT records).  It is
96              noteworthy that small  files  are  stored  entirely  within  the
97              inode;  thus,  if you expect to use the volume for storing large
98              numbers of very small files, it is useful to set the zone multi‐
99              plier  to  a higher value. Note, that the MFT zone is resized on
100              the fly as required during operation  of  the  NTFS  driver  but
101              choosing  a  good  value will reduce fragmentation. Valid values
102              are 1, 2, 3 and 4. The values have the following meaning:
103
104              ┌────────────────────────────────┐
105MFT zone     MFT zone size      
106multiplier   (% of volume size) 
107              │    1        12.5% (default)    │
108              │    2        25.0%              │
109              │    3        37.5%              │
110              │    4        50.0%              │
111              └────────────────────────────────┘
112
113       -T, --zero-time
114              Fake the time to be 00:00:00 UTC, Jan 1,  1970  instead  of  the
115              current  system  time.  This is only really useful for debugging
116              purposes.
117
118       -U, --with-uuid
119              Generate a random volume UUID.
120
121       -I, --no-indexing
122              Disable content indexing on the volume. (This is only meaningful
123              on  Windows  2000  and  later. Windows NT 4.0 and earlier ignore
124              this as they do not implement content indexing at all.)
125
126       -F, --force
127              Force mkntfs to run, even if the specified device is not a block
128              special device, or appears to be mounted.
129
130   Output options
131       -q, --quiet
132              Quiet execution; only errors are written to stderr, no output to
133              stdout occurs at all. Useful if mkntfs is run in a script.
134
135       -v, --verbose
136              Verbose execution.
137
138       --debug
139              Really verbose execution; includes the verbose output  from  the
140              -v  option  as  well  as  additional output useful for debugging
141              mkntfs.
142
143   Help options
144       -V, --version
145              Print the version number of mkntfs and exit.
146
147       -l, --license
148              Print the licensing information of mkntfs and exit.
149
150       -h, --help
151              Show a list of options with a brief description of each one.
152

KNOWN ISSUES

154       When applying chkdsk to a file system, it sometimes  throws  a  warning
155       "Correcting  errors  in the uppercase file." The uppercase file is cre‐
156       ated while formatting and it defines the mapping of lower case  charac‐
157       ters  to  upper case ones, as needed to sort file names in directories.
158       The warning means that the uppercase file defined on the file system is
159       not  the same as the one used by the Windows OS on which chkdsk is run‐
160       ning, and this may happen because newer versions of Windows  take  into
161       account new characters defined by the Unicode consortium.
162
163       Currently,  mkntfs  creates  the  uppercase table so that no warning is
164       thrown by Windows Vista, Windows 7 or  Windows  8.  A  warning  may  be
165       thrown by other Windows versions, or if chkdsk is applied in succession
166       on different Windows versions.
167

BUGS

169       If you find a bug please send an email describing the  problem  to  the
170       development team:
171       ntfs-3g-devel@lists.sf.net
172

AUTHORS

174       mkntfs  was  written by Anton Altaparmakov, Richard Russon, Erik Sornes
175       and Szabolcs Szakacsits.  It was ported to ntfs-3g by Erik Larsson  and
176       Jean-Pierre Andre.
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AVAILABILITY

179       mkntfs is part of the ntfs-3g package and is available from:
180       http://www.tuxera.com/community/
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SEE ALSO

183       badblocks(8), ntfsprogs(8)
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187ntfs-3g 2017.3.23                January 2006                        MKNTFS(8)
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