Provided by: ntfs-3g_2022.10.3-5_amd64 
NAME
mkntfs - create an NTFS file system
SYNOPSIS
mkntfs [options] device [number-of-sectors]
mkntfs [ -C ] [ -c cluster-size ] [ -F ] [ -f ] [ -H heads ] [ -h ] [ -I ] [ -L volume-label ] [ -l ] [
-n ] [ -p part-start-sect ] [ -Q ] [ -q ] [ -S sectors-per-track ] [ -s sector-size ] [ -T ] [ -U ] [ -V
] [ -v ] [ -z mft-zone-multiplier ] [ --debug ] device [ number-of-sectors ]
DESCRIPTION
mkntfs is used to create an NTFS file system on a device (usually a disk partition) or file. device is
the special file corresponding to the device (e.g /dev/hdXX). number-of-sectors is the number of sectors
on the device. If omitted, mkntfs automagically figures the file system size.
OPTIONS
Below is a summary of all the options that mkntfs accepts. Nearly all options have two equivalent names.
The short name is preceded by - and the long name is preceded by --. Any single letter options, that
don't take an argument, can be combined into a single command, e.g. -fv is equivalent to -f -v. Long
named options can be abbreviated to any unique prefix of their name.
Basic options
-f, --fast, -Q, --quick
Perform quick (fast) format. This will skip both zeroing of the volume and bad sector checking.
-L, --label STRING
Set the volume label for the filesystem.
-C, --enable-compression
Enable compression on the volume.
-n, --no-action
Causes mkntfs to not actually create a filesystem, 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.
Advanced options
-c, --cluster-size BYTES
Specify the size of clusters in bytes. Valid cluster size values are powers of two, with at least
256, and at most 2097152 bytes (2MB) per cluster. If omitted, mkntfs uses 4096 bytes as the
default cluster size.
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).
-s, --sector-size BYTES
Specify the size of sectors in bytes. Valid sector size values are 256, 512, 1024, 2048 and 4096
bytes per sector. If omitted, mkntfs attempts to determine the sector-size automatically and if
that fails a default of 512 bytes per sector is used.
-p, --partition-start SECTOR
Specify the partition start sector. The maximum is 4294967295 (2^32-1). If omitted, mkntfs
attempts to determine part-start-sect automatically and if that fails or the value is oversized, a
default of 0 is used. The partition is usable despite a wrong value, however note that a correct
part-start-sect is required for Windows to be able to boot from the created volume.
-H, --heads NUM
Specify the number of heads. The maximum is 65535 (0xffff). If omitted, mkntfs attempts to
determine the number of heads automatically and if that fails a default of 0 is used. Note that
heads is required for Windows to be able to boot from the created volume.
-S, --sectors-per-track NUM
Specify the number of sectors per track. The maximum is 65535 (0xffff). If omitted, mkntfs
attempts to determine the number of sectors-per-track automatically and if that fails a default of
0 is used. Note that sectors-per-track is required for Windows to be able to boot from the created
volume.
-z, --mft-zone-multiplier NUM
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 volume 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 multiplier to a higher value. Note, that the MFT zone is
resized on the fly as required during operation 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% │
└─────────────────────────────────┘
-T, --zero-time
Fake the time to be 00:00:00 UTC, Jan 1, 1970 instead of the current system time. This is only
really useful for debugging purposes.
-U, --with-uuid
Generate a random volume UUID.
-I, --no-indexing
Disable content indexing on the volume. (This is only meaningful on Windows 2000 and later.
Windows NT 4.0 and earlier ignore this as they do not implement content indexing at all.)
-F, --force
Force mkntfs to run, even if the specified device is not a block special device, or appears to be
mounted.
Output options
-q, --quiet
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
Verbose execution.
--debug
Really verbose execution; includes the verbose output from the -v option as well as additional
output useful for debugging mkntfs.
Help options
-V, --version
Print the version number of mkntfs and exit.
-l, --license
Print the licensing information of mkntfs and exit.
-h, --help
Show a list of options with a brief description of each one.
KNOWN ISSUES
When applying chkdsk to a file system, it sometimes throws a warning "Correcting errors in the uppercase
file." The uppercase file is created while formatting and it defines the mapping of lower case
characters to upper case ones, as needed to sort file names in directories. The warning means that the
uppercase file defined on the file system is not the same as the one used by the Windows OS on which
chkdsk is running, and this may happen because newer versions of Windows take into account new characters
defined by the Unicode consortium.
Currently, mkntfs creates the uppercase table so that no warning is thrown by Windows Vista, Windows 7 or
Windows 8. A warning may be thrown by other Windows versions, or if chkdsk is applied in succession on
different Windows versions.
BUGS
If you find a bug please send an email describing the problem to the development team:
ntfs-3g-devel@lists.sf.net
AUTHORS
mkntfs was written by Anton Altaparmakov, Richard Russon, Erik Sornes and Szabolcs Szakacsits. It was
ported to ntfs-3g by Erik Larsson and Jean-Pierre Andre.
AVAILABILITY
mkntfs is part of the ntfs-3g package and is available from:
https://github.com/tuxera/ntfs-3g/wiki/
SEE ALSO
badblocks(8), ntfsprogs(8)
ntfs-3g 2022.10.3 January 2006 MKNTFS(8)