plucky (8) ntfsundelete.8.gz

Provided by: ntfs-3g_2022.10.3-5_amd64 bug

NAME

       ntfsundelete - recover a deleted file from an NTFS volume.

SYNOPSIS

       ntfsundelete [options] device

DESCRIPTION

       ntfsundelete has three modes of operation: scan, undelete and copy.

   Scan
       The  default  mode, scan simply reads an NTFS Volume and looks for files that have been deleted.  Then it
       will print a list giving the inode number, name and size.

   Undelete
       The undelete mode takes the files either matching the regular expression (option -m) or  specified by the
       inode-expressions  and  recovers  as  much  of  the  data  as  possible.   It saves the result to another
       location.  Partly for safety, but mostly because NTFS write support isn't finished.

   Copy
       This is a wizard's option.  It will save a portion of the MFT to a file.  This probably  only  be  useful
       when debugging ntfsundelete

   Notes
       ntfsundelete only ever reads from the NTFS Volume.  ntfsundelete will never change the volume.

CAVEATS

   Miracles
       ntfsundelete cannot perform the impossible.

       When  a file is deleted the MFT Record is marked as not in use and the bitmap representing the disk usage
       is updated.  If the power isn't turned off immediately, the free space, where the file used to live,  may
       become  overwritten.   Worse,  the  MFT  Record  may  be  reused for another file.  If this happens it is
       impossible to tell where the file was on disk.

       Even if all the clusters of a file are not  in  use,  there  is  no  guarantee  that  they  haven't  been
       overwritten by some short-lived file.

   Locale
       In  NTFS  all  the  filenames  are stored as Unicode.  They will be converted into the current locale for
       display by ntfsundelete.  The utility has successfully displayed some  Chinese  pictogram  filenames  and
       then correctly recovered them.

   Extended MFT Records
       In  rare  circumstances,  a  single MFT Record will not be large enough to hold the metadata describing a
       file (a file would have to be in hundreds of fragments for this to  happen).   In  these  cases  one  MFT
       record  may  hold  the filename, but another will hold the information about the data.  ntfsundelete will
       not try and piece together such records.  It will simply show unnamed files with data.

   Compressed and Encrypted Files
       ntfsundelete cannot recover compressed or encrypted files.  When scanning for them, it  will  display  as
       being 0% recoverable.

   The Recovered File's Size and Date
       To recover a file ntfsundelete has to read the file's metadata.  Unfortunately, this isn't always intact.
       When a file is deleted, the metadata can be left in an inconsistent state. e.g.  the  file  size  may  be
       zero; the dates of the file may be set to the time it was deleted, or random.
       To  be  safe  ntfsundelete will pick the largest file size it finds and write that to disk.  It will also
       try and set the file's date to the last modified date.  This date may be the correct last modified  date,
       or something unexpected.

OPTIONS

       Below  is a summary of all the options that ntfsundelete 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.

       -b, --byte NUM
              If any clusters of the file cannot be recovered, the missing parts will be filled with this  byte.
              The default is zeros.

       -C, --case
              When   scanning   an   NTFS   volume,   any  filename  matching  (using  the  --match  option)  is
              case-insensitive.  This option makes the matching case-sensitive.

       -c, --copy RANGE
              This wizard's option will write a block of MFT FILE records to a file.  The default  file  is  mft
              which will be created in the current directory.  This option can be combined with the --output and
              --destination options.

       -d, --destination DIR
              This option controls where to put the output file of the --undelete and --copy options.

       -f, --force
              This will override some sensible defaults, such as not overwriting an  existing  file.   Use  this
              option with caution.

       -h, --help
              Show a list of options with a brief description of each one.

       -i, --inodes RANGE
              Recover  the  files with these inode numbers.  RANGE can be a single inode number, several numbers
              separated by commas "," or a range separated by a dash "-".

       -m, --match PATTERN
              Filter the output by only looking for matching filenames.  The pattern can include  the  wildcards
              '?',  match  exactly one character or '*', match zero or more characters.  By default the matching
              is case-insensitive.  To make the search case sensitive, use the --case option.

       -O, --optimistic
              Recover parts of the file even if they are currently marked as in use.

       -o, --output FILE
              Use this option to set name of output file that --undelete or --copy will create.

       -P, --parent
              Display the parent directory of a deleted file.

       -p, --percentage NUM
              Filter the output of the  --scan  option,  by  only  matching  files  with  a  certain  amount  of
              recoverable content.  Please read the caveats section for more details.

       -q, --quiet
              Reduce the amount of output to a minimum.  Naturally, it doesn't make sense to combine this option
              with --scan.

       -s, --scan
              Search through an NTFS volume and print a list of files that could  be  recovered.   This  is  the
              default  action  of  ntfsundelete.   This  list  can  be  filtered  by  filename, size, percentage
              recoverable or last modification time, using the --match, --size, --percent  and  --time  options,
              respectively.

              The output of scan will be:

              Inode  Flags  %age     Date    Time    Size  Filename
               6038  FN..    93%  2002-07-17 13:42  26629  thesis.doc

              ┌────────────────────────────────────────┐
              │Flag   Description                      │
              │F/D    File/Directory                   │
              │N/R    (Non-)Resident data stream       │
              │C/E    Compressed/Encrypted data stream │
              │!      Missing attributes               │
              └────────────────────────────────────────┘

              The percentage field shows how much of the file can potentially be recovered.

       -S, --size RANGE
              Filter  the  output  of  the  --scan option, by looking for a particular range of file sizes.  The
              range may be specified as two numbers separated by a '-'.  The sizes may be abbreviated using  the
              suffixes k, m, g, t, for kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes and terabytes respectively.

       -t, --time SINCE
              Filter  the output of the --scan option.  Only match files that have been altered since this time.
              The time must be given as number using a suffix of d, w, m, y for days,  weeks,  months  or  years
              ago.

       -T, --truncate
              If  ntfsundelete  is  confident about the size of a deleted file, then it will restore the file to
              exactly that size.  The default behaviour is to round up the size to the  nearest  cluster  (which
              will be a multiple of 512 bytes).

       -u, --undelete
              Select  undelete  mode.   You  can  specify  the  files  to be recovered using by using --match or
              --inodes options.  This option can be combined with --output, --destination, and --byte.

              When the file is recovered it will be given its original name, unless the --output option is used.

       -v, --verbose
              Increase the amount of output that ntfsundelete prints.

       -V, --version
              Show the version number, copyright and license for ntfsundelete.

EXAMPLES

       Look for deleted files on /dev/hda1.

              ntfsundelete /dev/hda1

       Look for deleted documents on /dev/hda1.

              ntfsundelete /dev/hda1 -s -m '*.doc'

       Look for deleted files between 5000 and 6000000 bytes, with at least 90%  of  the  data  recoverable,  on
       /dev/hda1.

              ntfsundelete /dev/hda1 -S 5k-6m -p 90

       Look for deleted files altered in the last two days

              ntfsundelete /dev/hda1 -t 2d

       Undelete inodes 2, 5 and 100 to 131 of device /dev/sda1

              ntfsundelete /dev/sda1 -u -i 2,5,100-131

       Undelete  inode  number 3689, call the file 'work.doc', set it to recovered size and put it in the user's
       home directory.

              ntfsundelete /dev/hda1 -u -T -i 3689 -o work.doc -d ~

       Save MFT Records 3689 to 3690 to a file 'debug'

              ntfsundelete /dev/hda1 -c 3689-3690 -o debug

BUGS

       There are some small limitations to ntfsundelete, but currently no known bugs.  If you find a bug  please
       send an email describing the problem to the development team:
       ntfs-3g-devel@lists.sf.net

AUTHORS

       ntfsundelete   was  written  by  Richard  Russon  and  Holger  Ohmacht,  with  contributions  from  Anton
       Altaparmakov.  It was ported to ntfs-3g by Erik Larsson and Jean-Pierre Andre.

AVAILABILITY

       ntfsundelete is part of the ntfs-3g package and is available from:
       https://github.com/tuxera/ntfs-3g/wiki/

SEE ALSO

       ntfsinfo(8), ntfsprogs(8)