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NTFSCLONE(8)							  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 res‐
       cue an NTFS filesystem to a sparse file, image, device  (partition)  or
       standard	 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
       another 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
       restore 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 clonning but itself it's not  enough.  You  can
       find useful tips following the related links on the below page
       http://wiki.linux-ntfs.org/doku.php?id=ntfsclone

   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 example 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  in‐
       put 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, trou‐
       bleshooting.

       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  in‐
       side  the metadata are filled with zeros. Thus this mode is inappropri‐
       ate for example for forensic analyses.

       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.

       -O, --overwrite FILE
	      Clone NTFS to FILE, overwriting if 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.

       --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  be‐
	      ginning of such sectors are marked by "BadSectoR\0".

       -m, --metadata
	      Clone ONLY METADATA (for NTFS experts). Moreover only cloning to
	      a file is allowed.  You can't metadata-only clone to  a  device,
	      image or standard output.

       --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 incon‐
	      sistency are saved too.

       -f, --force
	      Forces ntfsclone to proceed if the filesystem is marked  "dirty"
	      for consistency check.

       -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.

	      ntfsclone --metadata --output ntfsmeta.img /dev/hda1
	      bzip2 ntfsmeta.img

       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 develop‐
       ment team: linux-ntfs-dev@lists.sourceforge.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.

AVAILABILITY
       ntfsclone is part of the ntfsprogs package and is available at:
       http://www.linux-ntfs.org/content/view/19/37

       The latest manual pages are available at:
       http://man.linux-ntfs.org/

       Additional up-to-date information can be found furthermore at:
       http://wiki.linux-ntfs.org/doku.php?id=ntfsclone

SEE ALSO
       ntfsresize(8) ntfsprogs(8) xfs_copy(8) debugreiserfs(8) e2image(8)

ntfsprogs 1.13.1		 February 2006			  NTFSCLONE(8)
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