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Questions tagged [ntfs]

NTFS (New Technology File System) is the primary file system used by Windows.

NTFS (New Technology File System) is a proprietary file system developed by Microsoft Corporation for its Windows line of operating systems, beginning with Windows NT 3.1 and Windows 2000, including Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and all their successors to date.

NTFS supersedes the file system as the preferred file system for Microsoft’s Windows operating systems.

NTFS has several improvements over FAT and HPFS such as improved support for metadata and the use of advanced data structures to improve performance, reliability, and disk space utilization, plus additional extensions such as security access control lists (ACL) and file system journaling.

Versions

The NTFS on-disk format has five released versions:

  • v1.0 with NT 3.1, released mid-1993
  • v1.1 with NT 3.5, released fall 1994
  • v1.2 with NT 3.51 (mid-1995) and NT 4 (mid-1996)
  • v3.0 from Windows 2000 ("NTFS V5.0" or "NTFS5")
  • v3.1 from Windows XP (autumn 2001; "NTFS V5.1")

NTFS Log

NTFS is a journaling file system and uses the NTFS Log ($LogFile) to record metadata changes to the volume. It is a critical functionality of NTFS (a feature that FAT/FAT32 does not provide) for ensuring that its internal complex data structures, or data moves performed by the defragmentation API, the modifications to MFT records, and indices will remain consistent in case of system crashes, and allow easy rollback of uncommitted changes to these critical data structures when the volume is remounted.

NTFS on other operating systems

Linux

The ability to read and write to NTFS is provided by the NTFS-3G driver. It is included in most distributions.

Mac OS X

Mac OS X 10.3 and later include read-only support for NTFS-formatted partitions.

References

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Is File.Delete() atomic under .NET

Target OS: Win2003 As posted in other SO questions about file operation atomicity, Win32 was simply not designed for transactions. Still I wonder whether file deletion could be non-atomic. After all, it is either get deleted or not. Or can a file…
user256890
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NTFS Alternate Data Streams - Good or bad Idea?

I would like to store some Application-Related Metadata for Files, and NTFS Alternate Data Streams (AltDS) would allow me to store this metadata directly on the files rather than in a separate database. I just don't feel like this is a good idea. I…
Michael Stum
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Java NTFS compression attribute

I need to read and modify the 'Compressed' attribute of a file on an NTFS partition from Java. I imagined something in the java.nio.file.attribute package would do it -- hell it's a complex enough package, but I can't find this attribute. The…
Boann
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Passthru reading of all files in folder

I've got pretty unusual request: I would like to load all files from specific folder (so far easy). I need something with very small memory footprint. Now it gets complicated (at least for me). I DON'T need to store or use the content of the files -…
Martin Zugec
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Vagrant use different host machine

I want to use Vagrant but not pollute my machine which I'm working on with n+ VirtualBox machines. I searched the web but found nothing. What I really want is working on my Laptop and invoking vagrant up there but the it should start the guest on…
Daniel Spangenberg
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SecurityIdentifier.Translate(typeof(NTaccount)) bugged?

When doing a conversion from a SID to an NTAccount, I use the following code: DirectorySecurity folder_sec = Directory.GetAccessControl("c:\\test", AccessControlSections.All); AuthorizationRuleCollection rules = folder_sec.GetAccessRules(true, true,…
Jordan
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Implement Change Journal in Delphi (Step 2)

Continuing my previous question, I was able to use this delphi unit to implement crazy FAST drive scan using this EnumMFTEntries() function, but I have trouble doing the following tasks: Task #1: Query the change journal to get the newly modified…
TheDude
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How do I grant SeCreateSymbolicLink on Windows Vista Home edition

I want to be able to use mklink to create symbolic links on my Windows Vista Home edition computer. However, I must grant SeCreateSymbolicLink before mklink will be able to function on Vista Home edition (by default the right is revoked). Home…
RogerV
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What actions update LastAccessTime?

Obviously not every action on a file or folder will immediately update its LastAccessTime since that just means that checking what is its LastAccessTime will always return the current time. But what is the limit? What can be done without changing an…
ispiro
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Removing all ACL on folder with powershell

I'm pretty new to powershell scripting (nearly 1 month since I started learning powershell.) I'm currently working on a script with powershell 2.0 to clean folder NTFS ACL. I want to delete every acl except the administrator one. My problem is that…
Anarko_Bizounours
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What part of Perl does not like NTFS Junctions?

I like the Vista style for pathing, so on a XP machine I've created NTFS junctions C:\Users -> C:\Documents and Settings and ~\Documents -> ~\My Documents, so that I only ever have to write one style of path C:\Users\me\Documents. However,…
Axeman
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How to check for hidden files & folders on NTFS partition using python on linux?

I am using NTFS partition on linux machine. I want to identify hidden files and folders on my NTFS partition on linux using python. How can I achieve this using python. Any code snippet / links would be appreciated. Thanks.
Mahendra Liya
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Mercurial and NTFS Alternate data stream

How does Mercurial handle Alternate Data Streams (in the NTFS file system)? If it can't handle that, is there a DCVS that does? EDIT: When I change version with update, what happens to the ADS ? Is it lost (erased)? Is it versioned too? Is it…
DonkeyMaster
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Windows cli equivalent of Mac `xattr`?

I thought extended file attributes existed in NTFS which Windows supports. I cannot find a cmd for accessing/updating attributes. Is there a flavor of Windows (and its file system) that supports this? I tried getfattr, setfattr, and a number of…
Mario
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NTFS directory has 100K entries. How much performance boost if spread over 100 subdirectories?

Context We have a homegrown filesystem-backed caching library. We currently have performance problems with one installation due to large number of entries (e.g. up to 100,000). The problem: we store all fs entries in one "cache directory". Very…
user331465
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