NTFSCLONE(8) System Manager's Manual NTFSCLONE(8)
NAME
ntfsclone - Efficiently clone, image, restore or rescue an NTFS
SYNOPSIS
ntfsclone [OPTIONS] SOURCE
ntfsclone --save-image [OPTIONS] SOURCE
ntfsclone --restore-image [OPTIONS] SOURCE
ntfsclone --metadata [OPTIONS] SOURCE
DESCRIPTION
ntfsclone will efficiently clone (copy, save, backup, restore) or rescue
an NTFS filesystem to a sparse file, image, device (partition) or stan-
dard output. It works at disk sector level and copies only the used
data. Unused disk space becomes zero (cloning to sparse file), encoded
with control codes (saving in special image format), left unchanged
(cloning to a disk/partition) or filled with zeros (cloning to standard
output).
ntfsclone can be useful to make backups, an exact snapshot of an NTFS
filesystem and restore it later on, or for developers to test NTFS
read/write functionality, troubleshoot/investigate users' issues using
the clone without the risk of destroying the original filesystem.
The clone, if not using the special image format, is an exact copy of
the original NTFS filesystem from sector to sector thus it can be also
mounted just like the original NTFS filesystem. For example if you
clone to a file and the kernel has loopback device and NTFS support then
the file can be mounted as
mount -t ntfs -o loop ntfsclone.img /mnt/ntfsclone
Windows Cloning
If you want to copy, move or restore a system or boot partition to an-
other computer, or to a different disk or partition (e.g. hda1->hda2,
hda1->hdb1 or to a different disk sector offset) then you will need to
take extra care.
Usually, Windows will not be able to boot, unless you copy, move or re-
store NTFS to the same partition which starts at the same sector on the
same type of disk having the same BIOS legacy cylinder setting as the
original partition and disk had.
The ntfsclone utility guarantees to make an exact copy of NTFS but it
won't deal with booting issues. This is by design: ntfsclone is a
filesystem, not system utility. Its aim is only NTFS cloning, not Win-
dows cloning. Hereby ntfsclone can be used as a very fast and reliable
build block for Windows cloning but itself it's not enough.
Sparse Files
A file is sparse if it has unallocated blocks (holes). The reported size
of such files are always higher than the disk space consumed by them.
The du command can tell the real disk space used by a sparse file. The
holes are always read as zeros. All major Linux filesystem like, ext2,
ext3, reiserfs, Reiser4, JFS and XFS, supports sparse files but for ex-
ample the ISO 9600 CD-ROM filesystem doesn't.
Handling Large Sparse Files
As of today Linux provides inadequate support for managing (tar, cp,
gzip, gunzip, bzip2, bunzip2, cat, etc) large sparse files. The only
main Linux filesystem having support for efficient sparse file handling
is XFS by the XFS_IOC_GETBMAPX ioctl(2). However none of the common
utilities supports it. This means when you tar, cp, gzip, bzip2, etc a
large sparse file they will always read the entire file, even if you use
the "sparse support" options.
bzip2(1) compresses large sparse files much better than gzip(1) but it
does so also much slower. Moreover neither of them handles large sparse
files efficiently during uncompression from disk space usage point of
view.
At present the most efficient way, both speed and space-wise, to com-
press and uncompress large sparse files by common tools would be using
tar(1) with the options -S (handle sparse files "efficiently") and -j
(filter the archive through bzip2). Although tar still reads and analy-
ses the entire file, it doesn't pass on the large data blocks having
only zeros to filters and it also avoids writing large amount of zeros
to the disk needlessly. But since tar can't create an archive from the
standard input, you can't do this in-place by just reading ntfsclone
standard output. Even more sadly, using the -S option results serious
data loss since the end of 2004 and the GNU tar maintainers didn't re-
lease fixed versions until the present day.
The Special Image Format
It's also possible, actually it's recommended, to save an NTFS filesys-
tem to a special image format. Instead of representing unallocated
blocks as holes, they are encoded using control codes. Thus, the image
saves space without requiring sparse file support. The image format is
ideal for streaming filesystem images over the network and similar, and
can be used as a replacement for Ghost or Partition Image if it is com-
bined with other tools. The downside is that you can't mount the image
directly, you need to restore it first.
To save an image using the special image format, use the -s or the
--save-image option. To restore an image, use the -r or the --re-
store-image option. Note that you can restore images from standard input
by using '-' as the SOURCE file.
Metadata-only Cloning
One of the features of ntfsclone is that, it can also save only the NTFS
metadata using the option -m or --metadata and the clone still will be
mountable. In this case all non-metadata file content will be lost and
reading them back will result always zeros.
The metadata-only image can be compressed very well, usually to not more
than 1-8 MB thus it's easy to transfer for investigation, troubleshoot-
ing.
In this mode of ntfsclone, NONE of the user's data is saved, including
the resident user's data embedded into metadata. All is filled with ze-
ros. Moreover all the file timestamps, deleted and unused spaces inside
the metadata are filled with zeros. Thus this mode is inappropriate for
example for forensic analyses. This mode may be combined with
--save-image to create a special image format file instead of a sparse
file.
Please note, filenames are not wiped out. They might contain sensitive
information, so think twice before sending such an image to anybody.
OPTIONS
Below is a summary of all the options that ntfsclone 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.
-o, --output FILE
Clone NTFS to the non-existent FILE. If FILE is '-' then clone
to the standard output. This option cannot be used for creating a
partition, use --overwrite for an existing partition.
-O, --overwrite FILE
Clone NTFS to FILE, which can be an existing partition or a regu-
lar file which will be overwritten if it exists.
-s, --save-image
Save to the special image format. This is the most efficient way
space and speed-wise if imaging is done to the standard output,
e.g. for image compression, encryption or streaming through a
network.
-r, --restore-image
Restore from the special image format specified by SOURCE argu-
ment. If the SOURCE is '-' then the image is read from the stan-
dard input.
-n, --no-action
Test the consistency of a saved image by simulating its restoring
without writing anything. The NTFS data contained in the image is
not tested. The option --restore-image must also be present, and
the options --output and --overwrite must be omitted.
--rescue
Ignore disk read errors so disks having bad sectors, e.g. dying
disks, can be rescued the most efficiently way, with minimal
stress on them. Ntfsclone works at the lowest, sector level in
this mode too thus more data can be rescued. The contents of the
unreadable sectors are filled by character '?' and the beginning
of such sectors are marked by "BadSectoR\0".
-m, --metadata
Clone ONLY METADATA (for NTFS experts). Only cloning to a
(sparse) file is allowed, unless used the option --save-image is
also used. You can't metadata-only clone to a device.
--ignore-fs-check
Ignore the result of the filesystem consistency check. This op-
tion is allowed to be used only with the --metadata option, for
the safety of user's data. The clusters which cause the inconsis-
tency are saved too.
-t, --preserve-timestamps
Do not wipe the timestamps, to be used only with the --metadata
option.
--full-logfile
Include the Windows log file in the copy. This is only useful for
extracting metadata, saving or cloning a file system which was
not properly unmounted from Windows.
--new-serial, or
--new-half-serial
Set a new random serial number to the clone. The serial number is
a 64 bit number used to identify the device during the mounting
process, so it has to be changed to enable the original file sys-
tem and the clone to be mounted at the same time on the same com-
puter.
The option --new-half-serial only changes the upper part of the
serial number, keeping the lower part which is used by Windows
unchanged.
The options --new-serial and --new-half-serial can only be used
when cloning a file system of restoring from an image.
The serial number is not the volume UUID used by Windows to lo-
cate files which have been moved to another volume.
-f, --force
Forces ntfsclone to proceed if the filesystem is marked "dirty"
for consistency check.
-q, --quiet
Do not display any progress-bars during operation.
-h, --help
Show a list of options with a brief description of each one.
EXIT CODES
The exit code is 0 on success, non-zero otherwise.
EXAMPLES
Clone NTFS on /dev/hda1 to /dev/hdc1:
ntfsclone --overwrite /dev/hdc1 /dev/hda1
Save an NTFS to a file in the special image format:
ntfsclone --save-image --output backup.img /dev/hda1
Restore an NTFS from a special image file to its original partition:
ntfsclone --restore-image --overwrite /dev/hda1 backup.img
Save an NTFS into a compressed image file:
ntfsclone --save-image -o - /dev/hda1 | gzip -c > backup.img.gz
Restore an NTFS volume from a compressed image file:
gunzip -c backup.img.gz | \
ntfsclone --restore-image --overwrite /dev/hda1 -
Backup an NTFS volume to a remote host, using ssh. Please note, that ssh
may ask for a password!
ntfsclone --save-image --output - /dev/hda1 | \
gzip -c | ssh host 'cat > backup.img.gz'
Restore an NTFS volume from a remote host via ssh. Please note, that ssh
may ask for a password!
ssh host 'cat backup.img.gz' | gunzip -c | \
ntfsclone --restore-image --overwrite /dev/hda1 -
Stream an image file from a web server and restore it to a partition:
wget -qO - http://server/backup.img | \
ntfsclone --restore-image --overwrite /dev/hda1 -
Clone an NTFS volume to a non-existent file:
ntfsclone --output ntfs-clone.img /dev/hda1
Pack NTFS metadata for NTFS experts. Please note that bzip2 runs very
long but results usually at least 10 times smaller archives than gzip on
a sparse file.
ntfsclone --metadata --output ntfsmeta.img /dev/hda1
bzip2 ntfsmeta.img
Or, outputting to a compressed image :
ntfsclone -mst --output - /dev/hda1 | bzip2 > ntfsmeta.bz2
Unpacking NTFS metadata into a sparse file:
bunzip2 -c ntfsmeta.img.bz2 | \
cp --sparse=always /proc/self/fd/0 ntfsmeta.img
KNOWN ISSUES
There are no known problems with ntfsclone. If you think you have found
a problem then please send an email describing it to the development
team: ntfs-3g-devel@lists.sf.net
Sometimes it might appear ntfsclone froze if the clone is on ReiserFS
and even CTRL-C won't stop it. This is not a bug in ntfsclone, however
it's due to ReiserFS being extremely inefficient creating large sparse
files and not handling signals during this operation. This ReiserFS
problem was improved in kernel 2.4.22. XFS, JFS and ext3 don't have
this problem.
AUTHORS
ntfsclone was written by Szabolcs Szakacsits with contributions from Per
Olofsson (special image format support) and Anton Altaparmakov. It was
ported to ntfs-3g by Erik Larsson and Jean-Pierre Andre.
AVAILABILITY
ntfsclone is part of the ntfs-3g package and is available at:
https://github.com/tuxera/ntfs-3g/wiki/
SEE ALSO
ntfsresize(8) ntfsprogs(8) xfs_copy(8) debugreiserfs(8) e2image(8)
ntfs-3g 2022.10.3 February 2013 NTFSCLONE(8)
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