1mkntfs(1M) System Administration Commands mkntfs(1M)
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6 mkntfs - create an NTFS file system
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9 mkntfs [options] device [number_of_sectors]
10 mkntfs [-C] [-c cluster-size] [-F] [-f] [-H heads] [-h] [-I]
13 [-L volume-label] [-l] [-n] [-p part-start-sect] [-Q] [-q]
14 [-S sectors-per-track] [-s sector-size] [-T] [-V] [-v]
15 [-z mft-zone-multiplier] [--debug] device [number-of-sectors]
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19 The mkntfs utility is used to create an NTFS file system on a device,
20 usually a disk partition, or file. The device operand is the special
21 file corresponding to the device; for example, /dev/dsk/c0d0p0. The
22 number-of-sectors operand is the number of blocks on the device. If
23 omitted, mkntfs automatically figures the file system size.
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26 Supported options are listed below. Most options have both single-let‐
27 ter and full-name forms. Multiple single-letter options that do not
28 take an argument can be combined. For example, -fv is the equivalent of
29 -f -v. A full-name option can be abbreviated to a unique prefix of its
30 name.
31 Options are divided among basic, advanced, output, and help options, as
34 listed below.
35 Basic Options
37 -C, --enable-compression
38 Enable compression on the volume.
40 -f, --fast or -q, --quick
43 Perform quick (fast) format. This option skips both zeroing of the
45 volume and bad sector checking.
46 -L, --label string
49 Set the volume label for the filesystem to string.
51 -n, --no-action
54 Causes mkntfs to not actually create a file system, but display
56 what it would do if it were to create a file system. All formatting
57 steps are carried out except the actual writing to the device.
58 Advanced Options
61 -c, --cluster-size bytes
62 Specify the size of clusters in bytes. Valid cluster size values
64 are powers of two, with at least 256, and at most 65536, bytes per
65 cluster. If omitted, mkntfs uses 4096 bytes as the default cluster
66 size.
67 Note that the default cluster size is set to be at least equal to
69 the sector size, as a cluster cannot be smaller than a sector.
70 Also, note that values greater than 4096 have the side effect that
71 compression is disabled on the volume. This is due to limitations
72 in the NTFS compression algorithm used by Windows.
73 -F, --force
76 Force mkntfs to run, even if the specified device is not a block
78 special device, or appears to be mounted.
79 -H, --heads num
82 Specify the number of heads. The maximum is 65535 (0xffff). If
84 omitted, mkntfs attempts to determine the number of heads automati‐
85 cally. If that fails a default of 0 is used. Note that specifying
86 num is required for Windows to be able to boot from the created
87 volume.
88 -I, --no-indexing
91 Disable content indexing on the volume. This option is only mean‐
93 ingful on Windows 2000 and later. Windows NT 4.0 and earlier ignore
94 this, as they do not implement content indexing.
95 -p, --partition-start sector
98 Specify the partition start sector. The maximum is 4294967295
100 (2^32-1). If omitted, mkntfs attempts to determine sectorautomati‐
101 cally. If that fails, a default of 0 is used. Note that specifying
102 sector is required for Windows to be able to boot from the created
103 volume.
104 -S, --sectors-per-track num
107 Specify the number of sectors per track. The maximum is 65535
109 (0xffff). If omitted, mkntfs attempts to determine the number of
110 sectors-per-track automatically and if that fails a default of 0 is
111 used. Note that sectors-per-track is required for Windows to be
112 able to boot from the created volume.
113 -s, --sector-size bytes
116 Specify the size of sectors in bytes. Valid sector size values are
118 256, 512, 1024, 2048, and 4096. If omitted, mkntfs attempts to
119 determine the sector-size automatically. If that fails, a default
120 of 512 bytes per sector is used.
121 -T, --zero-time
124 Fake the time to be 00:00:00 UTC, Jan 1, 1970, instead of the cur‐
126 rent system time. This can be useful for debugging purposes.
127 -z, --mft-zone-multiplier num
130 Set the master file table (MFT) zone multiplier, which determines
132 the size of the MFT zone to use on the volume. The MFT zone is the
133 area at the beginning of the volume reserved for the MFT, which
134 stores the on-disk inodes (MFT records). It is noteworthy that
135 small files are stored entirely within the inode; thus, if you
136 expect to use the volume for storing large numbers of very small
137 files, it is useful to set the zone multiplier to a higher value.
138 Although the MFT zone is resized on the fly as required during
139 operation of the NTFS driver, choosing an optimal value reduces
140 fragmentation. Valid values are 1, 2, 3, and 4. The values have the
141 following meaning:
142 MFT zone MFT zone size
144 multiplier (% of volume size)
145 1 12.5% (default)
146 2 25.0%
147 3 37.5%
148 4 50.0%
149 Output Options
154 --debug
155 Includes the verbose output from the -v option, as well as addi‐
157 tional output useful for debugging mkntfs.
158 -q, --quiet
161 Verbose execution. Errors are written to stderr, no output to std‐
163 out occurs at all. Useful if mkntfs is run in a script.
164 -v, --verbose
167 Verbose execution.
169 Help Options
172 -h, --help
173 Show a list of options with a brief description of each one.
175 -l, --license
178 Display the mkntfs licensing information and exit.
180 -V, --version
183 Display the mkntfs version number and exit.
185
188 See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
189 ┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
194 │ ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
195 ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
196 │Availability │SUNWntfsprogs │
197 ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
198 │Interface Stability │Uncommitted │
199 └─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
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202 ntfsprogs(1M), ntfsresize(1M), ntfsundelete(1M), attributes(5)
203 http://wiki.linux-ntfs.org
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208 mkntfs was written by Anton Altaparmakov, Richard Russon, Erik Sornes
209 and Szabolcs Szakacsits.
210SunOS 5.11 27 May 2009 mkntfs(1M)