ntfsprogs/ntfsrecover.8.in

.\" Copyright (c) 2015 Jean-Pierre Andre
.\" This file may be copied under the terms of the GNU Public License.
.\"
.TH NTFSRECOVER 8 "September 2015" "ntfs-3g @VERSION@"
.SH NAME
ntfsrecover \- Recover updates committed by Windows on an NTFS volume
.SH SYNOPSIS
\fBntfsrecover\fR [\fIoptions\fR] \fIdevice\fR
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B ntfsrecover
applies to the metadata the updates which were requested on Windows but could
not be completed because they were interrupted by some event such as a power
failure, a hardware crash, a software crash or the device being unplugged.
Doing so, the file system is restored to a consistent state, however updates
to user data may still be lost.

Updating the file system generally requires updating several records which
should all be made for the file system to be kept consistent. For instance,
creating a new file requires reserving an inode number (set a bit in a bit
map), creating a file record (store the file name and file attributes), and
registering the file in a directory (locate the file from some path). When an
unfortunate event occurs, and one of these updates could be done but not all
of them, the file system is left inconsistent.

A group of updates which have all to be done to preserve consistency is
called a transaction, and the end of updates within a transaction is called
the commitment of the transaction.

To protect from unfortunate events, Windows first logs in a special file all
the metadata update requests without applying any, until the commitment is
known. If the event occurs before the commitment, no update has been made and
the file system is consistent. If the event occurs after the update, the log
file can be analyzed later and the transactions which were committed can be
executed again, thus restoring the integrity of the file system.

.B ntfsrecover
similarly examines the log file and applies the updates within committed
transactions which could not be done by Windows.

Currently, ntfs-3g does not log updates, so
.B ntfsrecover
cannot be used to restore consistency after an unfortunate event occurred
while the file system was updated by Linux.

.SH OPTIONS
Below is a summary of all the options that
.B ntfsrecover
accepts. The normal usage is to use no option at all, as most of these
options are oriented towards developers needs.

Nearly all options have two equivalent names.  The short name is
preceded by
.B \-
and the long name is preceded by
.BR \-\- .
Any single letter options, that don't take an argument, can be combined into a
single command, e.g.
.B \-bv
is equivalent to
.BR "\-b \-v" .
Long named options can be abbreviated to any unique prefix of their name.
.TP
\fB\-b\fR, \fB\-\-backward\fR
Examine the actions described in the logfile backward from the latest one to
the earliest one without applying any update. This may encompass records
generated during several sessions, and when Windows is restarted, it often
does not restart writing where it ended the previous session, so this leads
to errors and bad sequencing when examining the full log file.
.TP
\fB\-c\fR, \fB\-\-clusters\fR \fBCLUSTER-RANGE\fR
Restrict the output generated when using options -b -f -u -p
to the actions operating on a cluster within the given cluster range.
CLUSTER-RANGE is defined by the first and last cluster numbers separated
by a hyphen, for instance 100-109 or 0x3e8-0x3ff. A single number means
restricting to a single cluster. The first four log blocks have a special
role and they are always shown.
.TP
\fB\-f\fR, \fB\-\-forward\fR \fBNUM\fR
Examine the actions described in the logfile forward from the first one to
the last one without applying any update. As the log file is reused
circularly, the first one is generally not the earliest. Moreover when
Windows is restarted, it often does not restart writing where it ended the
previous sessions, and this leads to errors when examining a log file
generated during several sessions.
.TP
\fB\-h\fR, \fB\-\-help\fR
Show some help information.
.TP
\fB\-n\fR, \fB\-\-no-action\fR
Do not apply any modification, useful when using the options -p, -s or -u.
.TP
\fB\-p\fR, \fB\-\-play\fR \fBCOUNT\fR
Undo COUNT transaction sets and redo a single one, a transaction set being
all transactions between two consecutive checkpoints. This is useful for
replaying some transaction in the past. As a few actions are not undoable,
this is not always possible.
.TP
\fB\-r\fR, \fB\-\-range\fR \fBBLOCK-RANGE\fR
Examine the actions described in the logfile forward restricted to the
requested log file block range without applying any update. The first four
log blocks have a special role and they are always examined.
.TP
\fB\-s\fR, \fB\-\-sync\fR
Sync the file system by applying the committed actions which have not
been synced previously. This is the default option, used when none of
the options -n, -f, -r, -p and -u are present.

The option -s can be repeated to request applying the committed actions
mentioned in the obsolete restart page. This is useful for testing the
situations where the latest restart page cannot be read though it can
actually be read.
.TP
\fB\-t\fR, \fB\-\-transactions\fR \fBCOUNT\fR
Display the transaction parameters when examining the log file with one
of the options --forward, --backward or --range.
.TP
\fB\-u\fR, \fB\-\-undo\fR \fBCOUNT\fR
Undo COUNT transaction sets, thus resetting the file system to some
checkpoint in the past, a transaction set being all transactions between
two consecutive checkpoints. As a few actions are not undoable, this is
not always possible.
.TP
\fB\-v\fR, \fB\-\-verbose\fR
Display more debug/warning/error messages. This option may be used twice
to display even more information.
.TP
\fB\-V\fR, \fB\-\-version\fR
Show the version number, copyright and license of
.BR ntfsrecover .
.SH EXAMPLES
Sync an NTFS volume on /dev/sda1.
.RS
.sp
.B ntfsrecover -s /dev/sda1
.sp
.RE
Display all actions which updated a cluster in range 100 to 119 :
.RS
.sp
.B ntfsrecover --verbose --backward --clusters=100-119 /dev/sda1
.sp
.RE
.SH BUGS
If you find a bug please send an email describing the problem to the
development team:
.br
.nh
ntfs\-3g\-devel@lists.sf.net
.hy
.SH AUTHORS
.B ntfsrecover
was written by Jean-Pierre Andre
.SH AVAILABILITY
.B ntfsrecover
is part of the
.B ntfs-3g
package and is available from:
.br
.nh
http://www.tuxera.com/community/
.hy
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR ntfs-3g (8),
.BR ntfsfix (8),
.BR ntfsprogs (8)