MKNTFS(8)                                             MKNTFS(8)





NAME
       mkntfs  -  create  a  NTFS 1.2 (Windows NT/2000/XP) file
       system

SYNOPSIS
       mkntfs [ -s sector-size ] [ -c cluster-size ] [ -L  vol-
       ume-label  ] [ -z mft-zone-multiplier ] [ -f | -Q ] [ -n
       ] [ -q ] [ -v ] [ -vv ] [ -C ] [ -F ] [ -I ] [ -V ] [ -l
       ] [ -h ] device [ number-of-sectors ]

DESCRIPTION
       mkntfs  is  used  to  create a NTFS 1.2 (Windows NT 4.0)
       file system on a  device  (usually  a  disk  partition).
       device  is  the special file corresponding to the device
       (e.g /dev/hdXX).  number-of-sectors  is  the  number  of
       blocks  on the device.  If omitted, mkntfs automagically
       figures the file system size.

OPTIONS
       -s sector-size
              Specify the size of sectors in bytes. Valid  sec-
              tor size values are 256, 512, 1024, 2048 and 4096
              bytes per sector. If omitted, mkntfs  sector-size
              is  determined  automatically and if that fails a
              default of 512 bytes per sector is used.

       -c cluster-size
              Specify the size  of  clusters  in  bytes.  Valid
              cluster  size  values  are powers of two, with at
              least 256, and at most 65536 bytes  per  cluster.
              If  omitted, mkntfs cluster-size is determined by
              the volume size. The value is determined as  fol-
              lows:
              Volume   size      Default cluster
              0        - 512MB         512 bytes
              512MB    - 1GB          1024 bytes
              1GB      - 2GB          2048 bytes
              2GB      +              4096 bytes

              Note  that  the default cluster size is set to be
              at least equal to the sector size  as  a  cluster
              cannot  be smaller than a sector. Also, note that
              values greater than 4096  have  the  side  effect
              that  compression  is disabled on the volume (due
              to limitations in the NTFS compression  algorithm
              currently in use by Windows).

       -L volume-label
              Set the volume label for the filesystem.

       -z mft-zone-multiplier
              Set the MFT zone multiplier, which determines the
              size of the MFT zone to use on  the  volume.  The
              MFT zone is the area at the beginning of the vol-
              ume reserved for the  master  file  table  (MFT),
              which  stores  the  on disk inodes (MFT records).
              It is noteworthy  that  small  files  are  stored
              entirely within the inode; thus, if you expect to
              use the volume for storing large numbers of  very
              small  files, it is useful to set the zone multi-
              plier to a higher value. Note, that the MFT  zone
              is  resized  on the fly as required during opera-
              tion of the NTFS driver but choosing a good value
              will reduce fragmentation. Valid values are 1, 2,
              3 and 4. The values have the following meaning:
              MFT zone     MFT zone size
              multiplier   (% of volume size)
                  1        12.5% (default)
                  2        25.0%
                  3        37.5%
                  4        50.0%

       -f     Same as -Q.

       -Q     Perform quick format. This will skip both zeroing
              of the volume and bad sector checking.

       -n     Causes  mkntfs  to not actually create a filesys-
              tem, but display what it would do if it  were  to
              create  a filesystem. All steps of the format are
              carried out except  the  actual  writing  to  the
              device.

       -q     Quiet  execution;  only  errors  are  written  to
              stderr, no output to stdout occurs at all. Useful
              if mkntfs is run in a script.

       -v     Verbose execution.

       -vv    Really  verbose  execution;  includes the verbose
              output from the -v option as well  as  additional
              output useful for debugging mkntfs.

       -C     Enable compression on the volume.

       -F     Force mkntfs to run, even if the specified device
              is not a block special device, or appears  to  be
              mounted.

       -I     Disable  content indexing on the volume. (This is
              only meaningful on Windows 2000 and  later.  Win-
              dows  NT  4.0  and earlier ignore this as they do
              not implement content indexing at all.)

       -V     Print the version number of mkntfs and exit.

       -l     Print the licensing  information  of  mkntfs  and
              exit.

       -h     Print the usage information of mkntfs and exit.

BUGS
       mkntfs  writes the backup boot sector to the last sector
       of the block device being  formatted.  However,  current
       versions  of  the  Linux  kernel (all versions up to and
       including todays 2.4.18) either only report an even num-
       ber of sectors when the sector size is below 1024 bytes,
       which is the case for most hard drives today (512  bytes
       sector  size)  or  they  return  the  correct number but
       accessing the last sector fails. Either way, this  means
       that when a partition has an odd number of 512-byte sec-
       tors, the last sector is either not reported  to  us  at
       all  or  it  is not writable by us and hence the created
       NTFS volume will either  have  the  backup  boot  sector
       placed one sector ahead of where it should be or it can-
       not be written at all. For this reason, mkntfs marks the
       NTFS volume dirty, so that when you reboot into Windows,
       check disk runs automatically and creates a copy of  the
       backup  boot  sector  in the correct location. This also
       has the benefit of catching any bugs in mkntfs as  check
       disk  would find any corrupt structures and repair them,
       as well as report them. - If you  do  see  any  problems
       reported, please report the messages to the author.
       There  may  be  other  bugs.  Please, report them to the
       author.

AUTHOR
       This version of mkntfs has been written by  Anton  Alta-
       parmakov   <aia21@cantab.net>   (if   that   fails,  use
       <antona@users.sourceforge.net>).

AVAILABILITY
       mkntfs is part of the ntfsprogs package and is available
       for  download  from http://sourceforge.net/project/show-
       files.php?group_id=13956 in source (tar  ball  and  rpm)
       and pre-compiled binary (i386 rpm and deb) form.

SEE ALSO
       badblocks(8), ntfsprogs(8)




ntfsprogs version 1.9.0    March 2002                 MKNTFS(8)
