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 65536 bytes 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:
       http://www.tuxera.com/community/

SEE ALSO

       badblocks(8), ntfsprogs(8)