1MKNTFS(8) System Manager's Manual MKNTFS(8)
2
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 ] [ -N ntfs-version ] [ -p
13 part-start-sect ] [ -Q ] [ -q ] [ -S sectors-per-track ] [ -s sec‐
14 tor-size ] [ -T ] [ -V ] [ -v ] [ -z mft-zone-multiplier ] [ --debug ]
15 device [ number-of-sectors ]
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 -c, --cluster-size BYTES
44 Specify the size of clusters in bytes. Valid cluster size values
45 are powers of two, with at least 256, and at most 65536 bytes
46 per cluster. If omitted, mkntfs determines the cluster-size from
47 the volume size. The value is determined as follows:
48 ┌────────────────────────────────────────┐
50 │Volume size Default cluster size │
51 │0 - 512MB 512 bytes │
52 │512MB - 1GB 1024 bytes │
53 │1GB - 2GB 2048 bytes │
54 │2GB + 4096 bytes │
55 └────────────────────────────────────────┘
56 Note that the default cluster size is set to be at least equal
58 to the sector size as a cluster cannot be smaller than a sector.
59 Also, note that values greater than 4096 have the side effect
60 that compression is disabled on the volume (due to limitations
61 in the NTFS compression algorithm currently in use by Windows).
62 -N, --ntfs-version STRING
64 Select the version of NTFS you wish to create. This can be
65 "1.2" (Windows NT 4.0) or "3.1" (Windows XP, Server 2003 and
66 Vista). Versions are upwards compatible and Windows 2000, which
67 uses version "3.0", can read/write both.
68 If this option is omitted then version "3.1" is used.
70 -n, --no-action
72 Causes mkntfs to not actually create a filesystem, but display
73 what it would do if it were to create a filesystem. All steps of
74 the format are carried out except the actual writing to the
75 device.
76 Advanced options
78 -s, --sector-size BYTES
79 Specify the size of sectors in bytes. Valid sector size values
80 are 256, 512, 1024, 2048 and 4096 bytes per sector. If omitted,
81 mkntfs attempts to determine the sector-size automatically and
82 if that fails a default of 512 bytes per sector is used.
83 -p, --partition-start SECTOR
85 Specify the partition start sector. The maximum is 4294967295
86 (2^32-1). If omitted, mkntfs attempts to determine
87 part-start-sect automatically and if that fails a default of 0
88 is used. Note that part-start-sect is required for Windows to be
89 able to boot from the created volume.
90 -H, --heads NUM
92 Specify the number of heads. The maximum is 65535 (0xffff). If
93 omitted, mkntfs attempts to determine the number of heads auto‐
94 matically and if that fails a default of 0 is used. Note that
95 heads is required for Windows to be able to boot from the cre‐
96 ated volume.
97 -S, --sectors-per-track NUM
99 Specify the number of sectors per track. The maximum is 65535
100 (0xffff). If omitted, mkntfs attempts to determine the number of
101 sectors-per-track automatically and if that fails a default of 0
102 is used. Note that sectors-per-track is required for Windows to
103 be able to boot from the created volume.
104 -z, --mft-zone-multiplier NUM
106 Set the MFT zone multiplier, which determines the size of the
107 MFT zone to use on the volume. The MFT zone is the area at the
108 beginning of the volume reserved for the master file table
109 (MFT), which stores the on disk inodes (MFT records). It is
110 noteworthy that small files are stored entirely within the
111 inode; thus, if you expect to use the volume for storing large
112 numbers of very small files, it is useful to set the zone multi‐
113 plier to a higher value. Note, that the MFT zone is resized on
114 the fly as required during operation of the NTFS driver but
115 choosing a good value will reduce fragmentation. Valid values
116 are 1, 2, 3 and 4. The values have the following meaning:
117 ┌────────────────────────────────┐
119 │MFT zone MFT zone size │
120 │multiplier (% of volume size) │
121 │ 1 12.5% (default) │
122 │ 2 25.0% │
123 │ 3 37.5% │
124 │ 4 50.0% │
125 └────────────────────────────────┘
126 -T, --zero-time
128 Fake the time to be 00:00:00 UTC, Jan 1, 1970 instead of the
129 current system time. This is only really useful for debugging
130 purposes.
131 -I, --no-indexing
133 Disable content indexing on the volume. (This is only meaningful
134 on Windows 2000 and later. Windows NT 4.0 and earlier ignore
135 this as they do not implement content indexing at all.)
136 -F, --force
138 Force mkntfs to run, even if the specified device is not a block
139 special device, or appears to be mounted.
140 Output options
142 -q, --quiet
143 Quiet execution; only errors are written to stderr, no output to
144 stdout occurs at all. Useful if mkntfs is run in a script.
145 -v, --verbose
147 Verbose execution.
148 --debug
150 Really verbose execution; includes the verbose output from the
151 -v option as well as additional output useful for debugging
152 mkntfs.
153 Help options
155 -V, --version
156 Print the version number of mkntfs and exit.
157 -l, --license
159 Print the licensing information of mkntfs and exit.
160 -h, --help
162 Show a list of options with a brief description of each one.
163
165 If you find a bug please send an email describing the problem to the
166 development team:
167 linux-ntfs-dev@lists.sourceforge.net
168
170 mkntfs was written by Anton Altaparmakov, Richard Russon, Erik Sornes
171 and Szabolcs Szakacsits.
172
174 mkntfs is part of the ntfsprogs package and is available from:
175 http://www.linux-ntfs.org/content/view/19/37
176 The manual pages are available online at:
178 http://man.linux-ntfs.org/
179
181 badblocks(8), ntfsprogs(8)
182ntfsprogs 1.13.1 January 2006 MKNTFS(8)