ntfsundelete(8)
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: http://www.tuxera.com/community/
SEE ALSO
ntfsinfo(8), ntfsprogs(8)
Opportunity
Personal Opportunity - Free software gives you access to billions of dollars of software at no cost. Use this software for your business, personal use or to develop a profitable skill. Access to source code provides access to a level of capabilities/information that companies protect though copyrights. Open source is a core component of the Internet and it is available to you. Leverage the billions of dollars in resources and capabilities to build a career, establish a business or change the world. The potential is endless for those who understand the opportunity.
Business Opportunity - Goldman Sachs, IBM and countless large corporations are leveraging open source to reduce costs, develop products and increase their bottom lines. Learn what these companies know about open source and how open source can give you the advantage.
Free Software
Free Software provides computer programs and capabilities at no cost but more importantly, it provides the freedom to run, edit, contribute to, and share the software. The importance of free software is a matter of access, not price. Software at no cost is a benefit but ownership rights to the software and source code is far more significant.
Free Office Software - The Libre Office suite provides top desktop productivity tools for free. This includes, a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation engine, drawing and flowcharting, database and math applications. Libre Office is available for Linux or Windows.
Free Books
The Free Books Library is a collection of thousands of the most popular public domain books in an online readable format. The collection includes great classical literature and more recent works where the U.S. copyright has expired. These books are yours to read and use without restrictions.
Source Code - Want to change a program or know how it works? Open Source provides the source code for its programs so that anyone can use, modify or learn how to write those programs themselves. Visit the GNU source code repositories to download the source.
Education
Study at Harvard, Stanford or MIT - Open edX provides free online courses from Harvard, MIT, Columbia, UC Berkeley and other top Universities. Hundreds of courses for almost all major subjects and course levels. Open edx also offers some paid courses and selected certifications.
Linux Manual Pages - A man or manual page is a form of software documentation found on Linux/Unix operating systems. Topics covered include computer programs (including library and system calls), formal standards and conventions, and even abstract concepts.
