NTFSWIPE
Section: Maintenance Commands (8)
Updated: June 2014
Page Index
NAME
ntfswipe - overwrite unused space on an NTFS volume
SYNOPSIS
ntfswipe [
options]
device
DESCRIPTION
ntfswipe
clears all or part of unused space on an NTFS volume by overwriting
with zeroes or random bytes.
OPTIONS
Below is a summary of all the options that
ntfswipe
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.
- -a, --all
-
Wipe all unused space. This may take significant time. If the option
--unused-fast (or -U) is also present, the faster wiping method is used.
- -b, --bytes BYTE-LIST
-
Define the allowed replacement bytes which are drawn randomly to overwrite
the unused space. BYTE-LIST is a comma-separated list of values in
range 0-255 expressed in octal, decimal or hexadecimal base.
- -c, --count NUM
-
Define the number of times the unused space is to be overwritten. If both
options --bytes and --count are set, the space is
repeatedly overwritten this number of times by each of the values in the list.
- -d, --directory
-
Wipe all the directory indexes, which may contain names of deleted files.
- -f, --force
-
This will override some sensible defaults, such as not using a mounted volume.
Use this option with caution.
- -h, --help
-
Show a list of options with a brief description of each one.
- -i, --info
-
Display details about unused space, without wiping anything.
- -l, --logfile
-
Overwrite the logfile (update journal).
- -m, --mft
-
Overwrite the unused space in the MFT (main file table, which contains the
file names, and the contents of short files).
- -n, --no-action
-
Executes the wiping process without writing to device.
- -p, --pagefile
-
Overwrite the Windows swap space.
- -q, --quiet
-
Suppress some debug/warning/error messages.
- -s, --undel
-
Overwrite the space which had been allocated to a file which has been deleted
recently and is still undeletable. This option is not compatible with
--bytes and the replacement bytes are random ones or taken from a
standard list.
- -t, --tails
-
Overwrite the space at the end of files which is unused, but allocated
because the allocations are always done by full clusters.
- -u, --unused
-
Overwrite the space which is currently not allocated to any file (but
may have been used in the past).
- -U, --unused-fast
-
Overwrite the space which is currently not allocated to any file, trying
not to overwrite the space not written to since the previous wiping.
- -v, --verbose
-
Display more debug/warning/error messages. This option may be used twice
to display even more messages.
- -V, --version
-
Show the version number, copyright and license of
ntfswipe.
EXAMPLES
Wipe out all unused space in an NTFS volume.
-
ntfswipe -a /dev/sda1
Wipe out all deleted file names from an NTFS volume.
-
ntfswipe -dms /dev/sda1
BUGS
There are no known problems with
ntfswipe.
If you find a bug please send an email describing the problem to the
development team:
ntfs-3g-devel@lists.sf.net
AUTHORS
ntfswipe
was written by Richard Russon, Anton Altaparmakov and Yura Pakhuchiy.
It was ported to ntfs-3g by Erik Larsson.
AVAILABILITY
ntfswipe
is part of the
ntfs-3g
package and is available from:
http://www.tuxera.com/community/
SEE ALSO
ntfs-3g(8),
ntfsls(8),
ntfsprogs(8)