1MKNTFS(8) System Manager's Manual MKNTFS(8)
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6 mkntfs - create an NTFS file system
7
9 mkntfs [options] device [number-of-sectors]
10 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
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 blocks
21 on the device. If omitted, mkntfs automagically figures the file sys‐
22 tem size.
23
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 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 -L, --label STRING
38 Set the volume label for the filesystem.
39 -C, --enable-compression
41 Enable compression on the volume.
42 -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 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 65536 bytes
53 per cluster. If omitted, mkntfs uses 4096 bytes as the default
54 cluster size.
55 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 -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 -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 a default of 0
72 is used. Note that part-start-sect is required for Windows to be
73 able to boot from the created volume.
74 -H, --heads NUM
76 Specify the number of heads. The maximum is 65535 (0xffff). If
77 omitted, mkntfs attempts to determine the number of heads auto‐
78 matically and if that fails a default of 0 is used. Note that
79 heads is required for Windows to be able to boot from the cre‐
80 ated volume.
81 -S, --sectors-per-track NUM
83 Specify the number of sectors per track. The maximum is 65535
84 (0xffff). If omitted, mkntfs attempts to determine the number of
85 sectors-per-track automatically and if that fails a default of 0
86 is used. Note that sectors-per-track is required for Windows to
87 be able to boot from the created volume.
88 -z, --mft-zone-multiplier NUM
90 Set the MFT zone multiplier, which determines the size of the
91 MFT zone to use on the volume. The MFT zone is the area at the
92 beginning of the volume reserved for the master file table
93 (MFT), which stores the on disk inodes (MFT records). It is
94 noteworthy that small files are stored entirely within the
95 inode; thus, if you expect to use the volume for storing large
96 numbers of very small files, it is useful to set the zone multi‐
97 plier to a higher value. Note, that the MFT zone is resized on
98 the fly as required during operation of the NTFS driver but
99 choosing a good value will reduce fragmentation. Valid values
100 are 1, 2, 3 and 4. The values have the following meaning:
101 ┌────────────────────────────────┐
103 │MFT zone MFT zone size │
104 │multiplier (% of volume size) │
105 │ 1 12.5% (default) │
106 │ 2 25.0% │
107 │ 3 37.5% │
108 │ 4 50.0% │
109 └────────────────────────────────┘
110 -T, --zero-time
112 Fake the time to be 00:00:00 UTC, Jan 1, 1970 instead of the
113 current system time. This is only really useful for debugging
114 purposes.
115 -U, --with-uuid
117 Generate a random volume UUID.
118 -I, --no-indexing
120 Disable content indexing on the volume. (This is only meaningful
121 on Windows 2000 and later. Windows NT 4.0 and earlier ignore
122 this as they do not implement content indexing at all.)
123 -F, --force
125 Force mkntfs to run, even if the specified device is not a block
126 special device, or appears to be mounted.
127 Output options
129 -q, --quiet
130 Quiet execution; only errors are written to stderr, no output to
131 stdout occurs at all. Useful if mkntfs is run in a script.
132 -v, --verbose
134 Verbose execution.
135 --debug
137 Really verbose execution; includes the verbose output from the
138 -v option as well as additional output useful for debugging
139 mkntfs.
140 Help options
142 -V, --version
143 Print the version number of mkntfs and exit.
144 -l, --license
146 Print the licensing information of mkntfs and exit.
147 -h, --help
149 Show a list of options with a brief description of each one.
150
152 If you find a bug please send an email describing the problem to the
153 development team:
154 ntfs-3g-devel@lists.sf.net
155
157 mkntfs was written by Anton Altaparmakov, Richard Russon, Erik Sornes
158 and Szabolcs Szakacsits. It was ported to ntfs-3g by Erik Larsson and
159 Jean-Pierre Andre.
160
162 mkntfs is part of the ntfs-3g package and is available from:
163 http://www.tuxera.com/community/
164 The manual pages are available online at:
166 http://man.linux-ntfs.org/
167
169 badblocks(8), ntfsprogs(8)
170ntfs-3g 2011.4.12 January 2006 MKNTFS(8)