Manual: ntfswipe

NTFSWIPE(8)					   System Manager's Manual					 NTFSWIPE(8)

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 argu‐
       ment, 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 un‐
	      deletable. 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 writ‐
	      ten 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.

	      ntfswipe -a /dev/sda1

       Wipe out all deleted file names from an NTFS volume.

	      ntfswipe -dms /dev/sda1

BUGS
       There are no known problems with ntfswipe.  If you find a bug please send an email describing the problem to the	 de‐
       velopment 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)

ntfs-3g 2022.10.3					  June 2014						 NTFSWIPE(8)