System Administration Commands mkntfs(1M)
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] [-V] [-v]
[-z mft-zone-multiplier] [--debug] device [number-of-sectors]
DESCRIPTION
The mkntfs utility is used to create an NTFS file system on
a device, usually a disk partition, or file. The device operand is the special file corresponding to the device; forexample, /dev/dsk/c0d0p0. The number-of-sectors operand is
the number of blocks on the device. If omitted, mkntfs
automatically figures the file system size. OPTIONS Supported options are listed below. Most options have bothsingle-letter and full-name forms. Multiple single-letter
options that do not take an argument can be combined. Forexample, -fv is the equivalent of -f -v. A full-name option
can be abbreviated to a unique prefix of its name. Options are divided among basic, advanced, output, and help options, as listed below. Basic Options-C, --enable-compression
Enable compression on the volume.-f, --fast or -q, --quick
Perform quick (fast) format. This option skips both zeroing of the volume and bad sector checking.-L, --label string
Set the volume label for the filesystem to string.-n, --no-action
Causes mkntfs to not actually create a file system, but
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System Administration Commands mkntfs(1M)
display what it would do if it were to create a file system. All formatting steps 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 atmost 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 thevolume. This is due to limitations in the NTFS compres-
sion algorithm used by Windows.-F, --force
Force mkntfs to run, even if the specified device is
not a block special device, or appears to be mounted.-H, --heads num
Specify the number of heads. The maximum is 65535(0xffff). If omitted, mkntfs attempts to determine the
number of heads automatically. If that fails a default of 0 is used. Note that specifying num is required for Windows to be able to boot from the created volume.-I, --no-indexing
Disable content indexing on the volume. This option is only meaningful on Windows 2000 and later. Windows NT 4.0 and earlier ignore this, as they do not implement content indexing.-p, --partition-start sector
Specify the partition start sector. The maximum is4294967295 (2^32-1). If omitted, mkntfs attempts to
determine sectorautomatically. If that fails, a default of 0 is used. Note that specifying sector is required for Windows to be able to boot from the created volume.SunOS 5.11 Last change: 27 May 2009 2
System Administration Commands mkntfs(1M)
-S, --sectors-per-track num
Specify the number of sectors per track. The maximum is65535 (0xffff). If omitted, mkntfs attempts to deter-
mine the number of sectors-per-track automatically and
if that fails a default of 0 is used. Note thatsectors-per-track is required for Windows to be able to
boot from the created volume.-s, --sector-size bytes
Specify the size of sectors in bytes. Valid sector size values are 256, 512, 1024, 2048, and 4096. If omitted,mkntfs attempts to determine the sector-size automati-
cally. If that fails, a default of 512 bytes per sector is used.-T, --zero-time
Fake the time to be 00:00:00 UTC, Jan 1, 1970, instead of the current system time. This can be useful for debugging purposes.-z, --mft-zone-multiplier num
Set the master file table (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 thevolume reserved for the 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 ofvery small files, it is useful to set the zone multi-
plier to a higher value. Although the MFT zone is resized on the fly as required during operation of theNTFS driver, choosing an optimal value reduces fragmen-
tation. Valid values are 1, 2, 3, and 4. The values have the following meaning: MFT zone MFT zone sizemultiplier (% of volume size)
1 12.5% (default)
2 25.0%
3 37.5%
4 50.0%
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System Administration Commands mkntfs(1M)
Output Options--debug
Includes the verbose output from the -v option, as well
as additional output useful for debugging mkntfs.
-q, --quiet
Verbose execution. Errors are written to stderr, no out-
put to stdout occurs at all. Useful if mkntfs is run in
a script.-v, --verbose
Verbose execution. Help Options-h, --help
Show a list of options with a brief description of each one.-l, --license
Display the mkntfs licensing information and exit.
-V, --version
Display the mkntfs version number and exit.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attri-
butes:SunOS 5.11 Last change: 27 May 2009 4
System Administration Commands mkntfs(1M)
____________________________________________________________
| ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
|_____________________________|_____________________________|
| Availability | system/file-system/ntfsprogs|
|_____________________________|_____________________________|
| Interface Stability | Uncommitted ||_____________________________|_____________________________|
SEE ALSO
ntfsprogs(1M), ntfsresize(1M), ntfsundelete(1M), attri-
butes(5)http://wiki.linux-ntfs.org
AUTHORSmkntfs was written by Anton Altaparmakov, Richard Russon,
Erik Sornes and Szabolcs Szakacsits.SunOS 5.11 Last change: 27 May 2009 5