ntfsresize
resize an NTFS filesystem without data loss
see also :
fdisk - cfdisk - sfdisk - parted - ntfsclone - mkntfs
Synopsis
ntfsresize
[OPTIONS]
--info(-mb-only)
DEVICE
ntfsresize [OPTIONS] [--size
SIZE[k|M|G]] DEVICE
add an example, a script, a trick and tips
examples
source
fi
MISSING=$(plon_check_progs
ntfsresize awk) \
|| { echo_error
"error: $MISSING not found"; exit 1; }
|| { echo_error
"error: $DEV is not a block device";
exit 3; }
DEV="$1"
PARTSIZE=$(ntfsresize -i
"$DEV" | grep '^Current
device size' | awk '{print
$4}')
source
echo "error: plon.shm
not found uin \$PATH"
exit 255
fi
MISSING=$(plon_check_progs
ntfsresize grep awk)
[ -z "$MISSING"
] || { echo_error "Missing program
$MISSING"; exit 1; }
MINSIZE=$[$(LANG=C ntfsresize -i -n "$DEV" | grep 'You might resize
at' | awk '{print $5}')+${MB_TO_ADD}000000]
source
MFT / NTLDR / NTFS (external drive) damaged after ntfsresize (Linux)
All Linux-based NTFS repair utilities are unfortunately rather
limited in their scope and ability. Testdisk is the best you're
going to get on the cross-platform side of things, and while it
is awesome for recovering partitions and bootsectors it's really
not what you're going to need if you damaged the NTFS filesystem
itself. The best testdisk will do in that case is attempt to
restore the MFT mirror.
ntfsfsck/ntfsfix are severely neutered
and have had parts of their recovery features/methods turned off
from years ago due to being dangerous because of being
incorrectly implemented or not fully understood when
reverse-engineered.
If you have access to a Windows setup CD for Vista and above, use
the command line feature from the "Startup Repair" to try
chkntfs /f on the partition in question (if it can
be seen). Failing that, it may be time to pull out your favorite
file recovery tool for the retrieval of files from formatted
volumes.
Free software: Testdisk's counterpart, photorec, does just that. I personally have had
good experiences with Recuva from Piriform, but that's a
Windows-only program so you'll need your hard disk connected to
another Windows machine.
There are hard-core commercial NTFS file undelete applications,
but honestly, they're almost never worth the hassle - if your
partition is damaged enough to need them, you'll get your files
back, but they probably will be incomplete/corrupted and won't
actually open. Your best bet would be to use those tools to
retrieve certain files by name.
Be forewarned: software that recovers files from deleted
partitions can take up to several days to run a deep scan!
source
do ntfsresize and gparted work on a disk image mounted through the loop device?
Yes, loop devices are indistinguishable from 'normal' block
devices for higher layer applications (like gparted). Loop device
access doesn't change timestamp of mounted file: it
is a bug.
Also, while kernel won't create partition subdevices, you can
make them with kpartx if you need so (just in case).
source
After ntfsresize (ntfs resize), what is the exact line to type in for fdisk?
fdisk is an interactive partition table editor, so
the only argument it needs is the hard disk device you want to
work on.
If you resized the partition /dev/hda1, then yes,
sudo fdisk /dev/hda is all you need. Or if you
resized /dev/sdb2, then you need to run sudo
fdisk /dev/sdb.
Once you get fdisk running, you'll have to delete
the partition you resized, then recreate it with the new size.
Make the new partition slightly larger than the size you
requested in the ntfsresize step.
Remember, if you don't think you've done it right, you can always
quit fdisk without writing the changed partition
table, and restart fresh. Don't write out the new
partition table until you're sure you've gotten it
right.
Here's the list of commands to use from inside
fdisk:
Command (m for help): m
Command action
a toggle a bootable flag
b edit bsd disklabel
c toggle the dos compatibility flag
d delete a partition
l list known partition types
m print this menu
n add a new partition
o create a new empty DOS partition table
p print the partition table
q quit without saving changes <------ use this if unsure
s create a new empty Sun disklabel
t change a partition's system id
u change display/entry units
v verify the partition table
w write table to disk and exit <------ don't do this until you're certain
x extra functionality (experts only)
description
The
ntfsresize program safely resizes Windows XP, Windows
Server 2003, Windows 2000, Windows NT4 and Longhorn NTFS
filesystems without data loss. All NTFS versions are
supported, used by 32-bit and 64-bit Windows.
Defragmentation is NOT required prior to resizing
because the program can relocate any data if needed, without
risking data integrity.
Ntfsresize can
be used to shrink or enlarge any NTFS filesystem located on
an unmounted DEVICE (usually a disk partition). The
new filesystem will have SIZE bytes. The SIZE
parameter may have one of the optional modifiers k,
M, G, which means the SIZE parameter is
given in kilo-, mega- or gigabytes respectively.
Ntfsresize conforms to the SI, ATA, IEEE standards
and the disk manufacturers by using k=10^3, M=10^6 and
G=10^9.
If both
--info(-mb-only) and
--size are omitted then the NTFS
filesystem will be enlarged to the underlying DEVICE
size.
To resize a
filesystem on a partition, you must resize BOTH the
filesystem and the partition by editing the partition table
on the disk. Similarly to other command line filesystem
resizers, ntfsresize doesn’t manipulate the
size of the partitions, hence to do that you must use a disk
partitioning tool as well, for example fdisk(8).
Alternatively you could use one of the many user friendly
partitioners that uses ntfsresize internally, like
Mandriva’s DiskDrake, QTParted, SUSE/Novell’s
YaST Partitioner, IBM’s EVMS, GParted or
Debian/Ubuntu’s Partman.
IMPORTANT!
It’s a good practice making REGULAR BACKUPS of your
valuable data, especially before using ANY partitioning
tools. To do so for NTFS, you could use ntfsclone(8).
Don’t forget to save the partition table as well!
Shrinkage
If you wish to shrink an NTFS partition, first use
ntfsresize to shrink the size of the filesystem. Then
you could use fdisk(8) to shrink the size of the
partition by deleting the partition and recreating it with
the smaller size. Do not make the partition smaller than the
new size of NTFS otherwise you won’t be able to boot.
If you did so notwithstanding then just recreate the
partition to be as large as NTFS.
Enlargement
To enlarge an NTFS filesystem, first you must enlarge the
size of the underlying partition. This can be done using
fdisk(8) by deleting the partition and recreating it
with a larger size. Make sure it will not overlap with an
other existing partition. You may enlarge upwards (first
sector unchanged) or downwards (last sector unchanged), but
you may not enlarge at both ends in a single step. If you
merge two NTFS partitions, only one of them can be expanded
to the merged partition. After you have enlarged the
partition, you may use ntfsresize to enlarge the size
of the filesystem.
Partitioning
When recreating the partition by a disk partitioning tool,
make sure you create it at the same starting sector and with
the same partition type as before. Otherwise you won’t
be able to access your filesystem. Use the ’u’
fdisk command to switch to the reliable sector unit from the
default cylinder one.
Also make sure
you set the bootable flag for the partition if it existed
before. Failing to do so you might not be able to boot your
computer from the disk.
options
Below is a
summary of all the options that ntfsresize 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.
-c, --check
By using this option ntfsresize
will only check the device to ensure that it is ready to be
resized. If not, it will print any errors detected. If the
device is fine, nothing will be printed.
-i,
--info
By using this option without
--expand, ntfsresize will determine the
theoretically smallest shrunken filesystem size supported.
Most of the time the result is the space already used on the
filesystem. Ntfsresize will refuse shrinking to a smaller
size than what you got by this option and depending on
several factors it might be unable to shrink very close to
this theoretical size. Although the integrity of your data
should be never in risk, it’s still strongly
recommended to make a test run by using the
--no-action option before real
resizing.
Practically the
smallest shrunken size generally is at around "used
space" + (20-200 MB). Please also take into
account that Windows might need about 50-100 MB free
space left to boot safely.
If used in
association with option --expand,
ntfsresize will determine the smallest downwards expansion
size and the possible increments to the size. These are
exact byte counts which must not be rounded. This option may
be used after the partition has been expanded provided the
upper bound has not been changed.
This option
never causes any changes to the filesystem, the partition is
opened read-only.
-m,
--info-mb-only
Like the info option, only
print out the shrinkable size in MB. Print nothing if the
shrink size is the same as the original size (in MB). This
option cannot be used in association with option
--expand.
-s,
--size
SIZE[k|M|G]
Resize filesystem to
SIZE[k|M|G] bytes by shifting
its end and keeping its beginning unchanged. The optional
modifiers k, M, G mean the SIZE
parameter is given in kilo-, mega- or gigabytes
respectively. Conforming to standards, k=10^3, M=10^6 and
G=10^9. Use this option with
--no-action first.
-x,
--expand
Expand the filesystem to the
current partition size, shifting down its beginning and
keeping its end unchanged. The metadata is recreated in the
expanded space and no user data is relocated. This is
incompatible with option -s (or --size)
and can only be made if the expanded space is an exact
multiple of the cluster size. It must also be large enough
to hold the new metadata.
If the
expansion is interrupted for some reason (power outage,
etc), you may restart the resizing, as the original data and
metadata have been kept unchanged.
Note :
expanding a Windows system partition and filesystem
downwards may lead to the registry or some files not
matching the new system layout, or to some important files
being located too far from the beginning of the partition,
thus making Windows not bootable.
-f,
--force
Forces ntfsresize to proceed
with the resize operation either without prompting for an
explicit acceptance, or if the filesystem is marked for
consistency check. Double the option (-ff, --force --force)
to avoid prompting even if the file system is marked for
check.
Please note,
ntfsresize always marks the filesystem for consistency check
before a real resize operation and it leaves that way for
extra safety. Thus if NTFS was marked by ntfsresize then
it’s safe to use this option. If you need to resize
several times without booting into Windows between each
resizing steps then you must use this option.
-n,
--no-action
Use this option to make a test
run before doing the real resize operation. Volume will be
opened read-only and ntfsresize displays what
it would do if it were to resize the filesystem. Continue
with the real resizing only if the test run passed.
-b,
--bad-sectors
Support disks having hardware
errors, bad sectors with those ntfsresize would
refuse to work by default.
Prior using
this option, it’s strongly recommended to make a
backup by ntfsclone(8) using the --rescue
option, then running ’chkdsk /f /r volume:’ on
Windows from the command line. If the disk guarantee is
still valid then replace it. It’s defected. Please
also note, that no software can repair these type of
hardware errors. The most what they can do is to work around
the permanent defects.
This option
doesn’t have any effect if the disk is flawless.
-P,
--no-progress-bar
Don’t show progress
bars.
-v,
--verbose
More output.
-V,
--version
Print the version number of
ntfsresize and exit.
-h,
--help
Display help and exit.
acknowledgement
Many thanks to Anton Altaparmakov and Richard Russon for libntfs,
the excellent documentation and comments, to Gergely Madarasz,
Dewey M. Sasser and Miguel Lastra and his colleagues at the
University of Granada for their continuous and highly valuable
help, furthermore to Erik Meade, Martin Fick, Sandro Hawke, Dave
Croal, Lorrin Nelson, Geert Hendrickx, Robert Bjorkman and
Richard Burdick for beta testing the relocation support, to
Florian Eyben, Fritz Oppliger, Richard Ebling, Sid-Ahmed Touati,
Jan Kiszka, Benjamin Redelings, Christopher Haney, Ryan Durk,
Ralf Beyer, Scott Hansen, Alan Evans for the valued contributions
and to Theodore Ts’o whose resize2fs(8) man page
originally formed the basis of this page.
availability
ntfsresize is part of the ntfs-3g package and is
available from:
http://www.tuxera.com/community/
Ntfsresize related news, example of usage,
troubleshooting, statically linked binary and FAQ (frequently
asked questions) are maintained at:
http://mlf.linux.rulez.org/mlf/ezaz/ntfsresize.html
exit codes
The exit code is 0 on success, non-zero otherwise.
known issues
No reliability problem is known. If you need help please try the
Ntfsresize FAQ first (see below) and if you don’t find your
answer then send your question, comment or bug report to the
development team:
ntfs-3g-devel[:at:]lists.sf[:dot:]net
There are a few very rarely met restrictions at present:
filesystems having unknown bad sectors, relocation of the first
MFT extent and resizing into the middle of a $MFTMirr extent
aren’t supported yet. These cases are detected and resizing is
restricted to a safe size or the closest safe size is displayed.
Ntfsresize schedules an NTFS consistency check and after
the first boot into Windows you must see chkdsk running on
a blue background. This is intentional and no need to worry about
it. Windows may force a quick reboot after the consistency check.
Moreover after repartitioning your disk and depending on the
hardware configuration, the Windows message System Settings
Change may also appear. Just acknowledge it and reboot again.
The disk geometry handling semantic (HDIO_GETGEO ioctl) has
changed in an incompatible way in Linux 2.6 kernels and this
triggered multitudinous partition table corruptions resulting in
unbootable Windows systems, even if NTFS was consistent, if
parted(8) was involved in some way. This problem was often
attributed to ntfsresize but in fact it’s completely independent
of NTFS thus ntfsresize. Moreover ntfsresize never touches the
partition table at all. By changing the ’Disk Access Mode’ to LBA
in the BIOS makes booting work again, most of the time. You can
find more information about this issue in the Troubleshooting
section of the below referred Ntfsresize FAQ.
see also
fdisk ,
cfdisk , sfdisk , parted ,
evms, ntfsclone , mkntfs ,
ntfsprogs
authors
ntfsresize
was written by Szabolcs Szakacsits, with contributions from
Anton Altaparmakov and Richard Russon. It was ported to
ntfs-3g by Erik Larsson and Jean-Pierre Andre.