NAME

       ntfsrecover - Recover updates committed by Windows on an NTFS volume

SYNOPSIS

       ntfsrecover [options] device

DESCRIPTION

       ntfsrecover  applies  to  the  metadata  the  updates  which  were  requested on Windows but could not be
       completed because they were interrupted by some event such as  a  power  failure,  a  hardware  crash,  a
       software  crash  or  the  device  being unplugged.  Doing so, the file system is restored to a consistent
       state, however updates to user data may still be lost.

       Updating the file system generally requires updating several records which should all  be  made  for  the
       file  system  to be kept consistent. For instance, creating a new file requires reserving an inode number
       (set a bit in a bit map), creating a  file  record  (store  the  file  name  and  file  attributes),  and
       registering  the  file in a directory (locate the file from some path). When an unfortunate event occurs,
       and one of these updates could be done but not all of them, the file system is left inconsistent.

       A group of updates which have all to be done to preserve consistency is called a transaction, and the end
       of updates within a transaction is called the commitment of the transaction.

       To protect from unfortunate events, Windows first logs in a special file all the metadata update requests
       without applying any, until the commitment is known. If the event occurs before the commitment, no update
       has  been  made and the file system is consistent. If the event occurs after the update, the log file can
       be analyzed later and the transactions which were committed can be executed  again,  thus  restoring  the
       integrity of the file system.

       ntfsrecover  similarly  examines the log file and applies the updates within committed transactions which
       could not be done by Windows.

       Currently, ntfs-3g does not log updates, so ntfsrecover cannot be used to restore  consistency  after  an
       unfortunate event occurred while the file system was updated by Linux.

OPTIONS

       Below  is  a summary of all the options that ntfsrecover accepts. The normal usage is to use no option at
       all, as most of these options are oriented towards developers needs.

       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.  -bv is equivalent to -b -v.  Long named options can be abbreviated to any unique prefix of
       their name.

       -b, --backward
              Examine  the  actions  described  in  the logfile backward from the latest one to the earliest one
              without applying any update. This may encompass records generated  during  several  sessions,  and
              when  Windows is restarted, it often does not restart writing where it ended the previous session,
              so this leads to errors and bad sequencing when examining the full log file.

       -c, --clusters CLUSTER-RANGE
              Restrict the output generated when using options -b -f -u -p to the actions operating on a cluster
              within  the  given  cluster range.  CLUSTER-RANGE is defined by the first and last cluster numbers
              separated by a hyphen, for instance 100-109 or 0x3e8-0x3ff. A single number means restricting to a
              single cluster. The first four log blocks have a special role and they are always shown.

       -f, --forward NUM
              Examine  the  actions  described in the logfile forward from the first one to the last one without
              applying any update. As the log file is reused circularly, the first  one  is  generally  not  the
              earliest. Moreover when Windows is restarted, it often does not restart writing where it ended the
              previous sessions, and this leads to errors when examining a log  file  generated  during  several
              sessions.

       -h, --help
              Show some help information.

       -k, --kill-fast-restart
              When  Windows  has  been interrupted with fast restart mode activated, part of pending changes are
              kept in the Windows cache and only the same Windows version can recover them. This option  can  be
              used  to  apply the changes recorded in the log file and drop the ones in the Windows cache.  This
              is dangerous and may cause loss of data.

       -n, --no-action
              Do not apply any modification, useful when using the options -p, -s or -u.

       -p, --play COUNT
              Undo COUNT transaction sets and redo a single  one,  a  transaction  set  being  all  transactions
              between two consecutive checkpoints. This is useful for replaying some transaction in the past. As
              a few actions are not undoable, this is not always possible.

       -r, --range BLOCK-RANGE
              Examine the actions described in the logfile forward restricted to the requested  log  file  block
              range  without  applying  any  update.  The first four log blocks have a special role and they are
              always examined.

       -s, --sync
              Sync the file system by applying the committed actions which have not been synced previously. This
              is the default option, used when none of the options -n, -f, -r, -p and -u are present.

              The  option -s can be repeated to request applying the committed actions mentioned in the obsolete
              restart page. This is useful for testing the situations where the latest restart  page  cannot  be
              read though it can actually be read.

       -t, --transactions COUNT
              Display  the transaction parameters when examining the log file with one of the options --forward,
              --backward or --range.

       -u, --undo COUNT
              Undo COUNT transaction sets, thus resetting the file system to some  checkpoint  in  the  past,  a
              transaction  set  being all transactions between two consecutive checkpoints. As a few actions are
              not undoable, this is not always possible.

       -v, --verbose
              Display more debug/warning/error messages. This option may be used  twice  to  display  even  more
              information.

       -V, --version
              Show the version number, copyright and license of ntfsrecover.

EXAMPLES

       Sync an NTFS volume on /dev/sda1.

              ntfsrecover -s /dev/sda1

       Display all actions which updated a cluster in range 100 to 119 :

              ntfsrecover --verbose --backward --clusters=100-119 /dev/sda1

BUGS

       If you find a bug please send an email describing the problem to the development team:
       ntfs-3g-devel@lists.sf.net

AUTHORS

       ntfsrecover was written by Jean-Pierre Andre

AVAILABILITY

       ntfsrecover is part of the ntfs-3g package and is available from:
       http://www.tuxera.com/community/

SEE ALSO

       ntfs-3g(8), ntfsfix(8), ntfsprogs(8)