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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 Files 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      Size  Filename
               6038  FN..    93%  2002-07-17  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’ and put it in  the
       user’s home directory.

              ntfsundelete /dev/hda1 -u -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:
       linux-ntfs-dev@lists.sourceforge.net

AUTHORS

       ntfsundelete  was  written  by  Richard Russon and Holger Ohmacht, with
       contributions from Anton Altaparmakov.

AVAILABILITY

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

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

SEE ALSO

       ntfsinfo(8), ntfsprogs(8)