NAME¶

ntfswipe - overwrite unused space on an NTFS volume

SYNOPSIS¶

ntfswipe [options] device

DESCRIPTION¶

ntfswipe clears all or part of unused space on an NTFS volume by overwriting with zeroes or random bytes.

OPTIONS¶

Below is a summary of all the options that ntfswipe 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.

-a, --all

Wipe all unused space. This may take significant time. If the option --unused-fast (or -U) is also present, the faster wiping method is used.

-b, --bytes BYTE-LIST

Define the allowed replacement bytes which are drawn randomly to overwrite the unused space. BYTE-LIST is a comma-separated list of values in range 0-255 expressed in octal, decimal or hexadecimal base.

-c, --count NUM

Define the number of times the unused space is to be overwritten. If both options --bytes and --count are set, the space is repeatedly overwritten this number of times by each of the values in the list.

-d, --directory

Wipe all the directory indexes, which may contain names of deleted files.

-f, --force

This will override some sensible defaults, such as not using a mounted volume. Use this option with caution.

-h, --help

Show a list of options with a brief description of each one.

-i, --info

Display details about unused space, without wiping anything.

-l, --logfile

Overwrite the logfile (update journal).

-m, --mft

Overwrite the unused space in the MFT (main file table, which contains the file names, and the contents of short files).

-n, --no-action

Executes the wiping process without writing to device.

-p, --pagefile

Overwrite the Windows swap space.

-q, --quiet

Suppress some debug/warning/error messages.

-s, --undel

Overwrite the space which had been allocated to a file which has been deleted recently and is still undeletable. This option is not compatible with --bytes and the replacement bytes are random ones or taken from a standard list.

-t, --tails

Overwrite the space at the end of files which is unused, but allocated because the allocations are always done by full clusters.

-u, --unused

Overwrite the space which is currently not allocated to any file (but may have been used in the past).

-U, --unused-fast

Overwrite the space which is currently not allocated to any file, trying not to overwrite the space not written to since the previous wiping.

-v, --verbose

Display more debug/warning/error messages. This option may be used twice to display even more messages.

-V, --version

Show the version number, copyright and license of ntfswipe.

EXAMPLES¶

Wipe out all unused space in an NTFS volume.

BUGS¶

There are no known problems with ntfswipe. If you find a bug please send an email describing the problem to the development team:
ntfs-3g-devel@lists.sf.net

AUTHORS¶

ntfswipe was written by Richard Russon, Anton Altaparmakov and Yura Pakhuchiy. It was ported to ntfs-3g by Erik Larsson.

AVAILABILITY¶

ntfswipe is part of the ntfs-3g package and is available from:
https://github.com/tuxera/ntfs-3g/wiki/

SEE ALSO¶

ntfs-3g(8), ntfsls(8), ntfsprogs(8)