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 sectors
21 on the device. If omitted, mkntfs automagically figures the file system
22 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 de‐
47 vice.
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 2097152 bytes
53 (2MB) per cluster. If omitted, mkntfs uses 4096 bytes as the de‐
54 fault 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 or the value is
72 oversized, a default of 0 is used. The partition is usable de‐
73 spite a wrong value, however note that a correct part-start-sect
74 is required for Windows to be able to boot from the created vol‐
75 ume.
76 -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 -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 -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 in‐
97 ode; 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 ┌────────────────────────────────┐
105 │MFT zone MFT zone size │
106 │multiplier (% of volume size) │
107 │ 1 12.5% (default) │
108 │ 2 25.0% │
109 │ 3 37.5% │
110 │ 4 50.0% │
111 └────────────────────────────────┘
112 -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 -U, --with-uuid
119 Generate a random volume UUID.
120 -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 -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 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 -v, --verbose
136 Verbose execution.
137 --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 Help options
144 -V, --version
145 Print the version number of mkntfs and exit.
146 -l, --license
148 Print the licensing information of mkntfs and exit.
149 -h, --help
151 Show a list of options with a brief description of each one.
152
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 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
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
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.
177
179 mkntfs is part of the ntfs-3g package and is available from:
180 https://github.com/tuxera/ntfs-3g/wiki/
181
183 badblocks(8), ntfsprogs(8)
184ntfs-3g 2022.5.17 January 2006 MKNTFS(8)