NTFSRESIZE(8) System Manager's Manual NTFSRESIZE(8)
NAME
ntfsresize - resize an NTFS filesystem without data loss
SYNOPSIS
ntfsresize [OPTIONS] --info(-mb-only) DEVICE
ntfsresize [OPTIONS] [--size SIZE[k|M|G]] DEVICE
DESCRIPTION
The ntfsresize program safely resizes Windows XP, Windows Server 2003,
Windows 2000, Windows NT4 and Longhorn NTFS filesystems without data
loss. All NTFS versions are supported, used by 32-bit and 64-bit Win-
dows. Defragmentation is NOT required prior to resizing because the
program can relocate any data if needed, without risking data in-
tegrity.
Ntfsresize can be used to shrink or enlarge any NTFS filesystem located
on an unmounted DEVICE (usually a disk partition). The new filesystem
will fit in a DEVICE whose desired size is SIZE bytes. The SIZE para-
meter may have one of the optional modifiers k, M, G, which means the
SIZE parameter is given in kilo-, mega- or gigabytes respectively.
Ntfsresize conforms to the SI, ATA, IEEE standards and the disk manu-
facturers by using k=10^3, M=10^6 and G=10^9.
If both --info(-mb-only) and --size are omitted then the NTFS filesys-
tem will be enlarged to match the underlying DEVICE size.
To resize a filesystem on a partition, you must resize BOTH the
filesystem and the partition by editing the partition table on the
disk. Similarly to other command line filesystem resizers, ntfsresize
doesn't manipulate the size of the partitions, hence to do that you
must use a disk partitioning tool as well, for example fdisk(8). Al-
ternatively you could use one of the many user friendly partitioners
that uses ntfsresize internally, like Mandriva's DiskDrake, QTParted,
SUSE/Novell's YaST Partitioner, IBM's EVMS, GParted or Debian/Ubuntu's
Partman.
IMPORTANT! It's a good practice making REGULAR BACKUPS of your valu-
able data, especially before using ANY partitioning tools. To do so for
NTFS, you could use ntfsclone(8). Don't forget to save the partition
table as well!
Shrinkage
If you wish to shrink an NTFS partition, first use ntfsresize to shrink
the size of the filesystem. Then you could use fdisk(8) to shrink the
size of the partition by deleting the partition and recreating it with
the smaller size. Do not make the partition smaller than the new size
of NTFS otherwise you won't be able to boot. If you did so notwith-
standing then just recreate the partition to be as large as NTFS.
Enlargement
To enlarge an NTFS filesystem, first you must enlarge the size of the
underlying partition. This can be done using fdisk(8) by deleting the
partition and recreating it with a larger size. Make sure it will not
overlap with another existing partition. You may enlarge upwards
(first sector unchanged) or downwards (last sector unchanged), but you
may not enlarge at both ends in a single step. If you merge two NTFS
partitions, only one of them can be expanded to the merged partition.
After you have enlarged the partition, you may use ntfsresize to en-
large the size of the filesystem.
Partitioning
When recreating the partition by a disk partitioning tool, make sure
you create it at the same starting sector and with the same partition
type as before. Otherwise you won't be able to access your filesystem.
Use the 'u' fdisk command to switch to the reliable sector unit from
the default cylinder one.
Also make sure you set the bootable flag for the partition if it ex-
isted before. Failing to do so you might not be able to boot your com-
puter from the disk.
OPTIONS
Below is a summary of all the options that ntfsresize 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.
-c, --check
By using this option ntfsresize will only check the device to
ensure that it is ready to be resized. If not, it will print any
errors detected. If the device is fine, nothing will be
printed.
-i, --info
By using this option without --expand, ntfsresize will determine
the theoretically smallest shrunken filesystem size supported.
Most of the time the result is the space already used on the
filesystem. Ntfsresize will refuse shrinking to a smaller size
than what you got by this option and depending on several fac-
tors it might be unable to shrink very close to this theoretical
size. Although the integrity of your data should be never in
risk, it's still strongly recommended to make a test run by us-
ing the --no-action option before real resizing.
Practically the smallest shrunken size generally is at around
"used space" + (20-200 MB). Please also take into account that
Windows might need about 50-100 MB free space left to boot
safely.
If used in association with option --expand, ntfsresize will de-
termine the smallest downwards expansion size and the possible
increments to the size. These are exact byte counts which must
not be rounded. This option may be used after the partition has
been expanded provided the upper bound has not been changed.
This option never causes any changes to the filesystem, the par-
tition is opened read-only.
-m, --info-mb-only
Like the info option, only print out the shrinkable size in MB.
Print nothing if the shrink size is the same as the original
size (in MB). This option cannot be used in association with
option --expand.
-s, --size SIZE[k|M|G]
Resize filesystem to fit in a partition whose size is
SIZE[k|M|G] bytes by shifting its end and keeping its beginning
unchanged. The filesystem size is set to be at least one sector
smaller than the partition. The optional modifiers k, M, G mean
the SIZE parameter is given in kilo-, mega- or gigabytes respec-
tively. Conforming to standards, k=10^3, M=10^6 and G=10^9.
ki=2^10, Mi=2^20 and Gi=2^30 are also allowed. Use this option
with --no-action first.
-x, --expand
Expand the filesystem to the current partition size, shifting
down its beginning and keeping its end unchanged. The metadata
is recreated in the expanded space and no user data is relo-
cated. This is incompatible with option -s (or --size) and can
only be made if the expanded space is an exact multiple of the
cluster size. It must also be large enough to hold the new meta-
data.
If the expansion is interrupted for some reason (power outage,
etc), you may restart the resizing, as the original data and
metadata have been kept unchanged.
Note : expanding a Windows system partition and filesystem down-
wards may lead to the registry or some files not matching the
new system layout, or to some important files being located too
far from the beginning of the partition, thus making Windows not
bootable.
-f, --force
Forces ntfsresize to proceed with the resize operation either
without prompting for an explicit acceptance, or if the filesys-
tem is marked for consistency check. Double the option (-ff,
--force --force) to avoid prompting even if the file system is
marked for check.
Please note, ntfsresize always marks the filesystem for consis-
tency check before a real resize operation and it leaves that
way for extra safety. Thus if NTFS was marked by ntfsresize then
it's safe to use this option. If you need to resize several
times without booting into Windows between each resizing steps
then you must use this option.
-n, --no-action
Use this option to make a test run before doing the real resize
operation. Volume will be opened read-only and ntfsresize dis-
plays what it would do if it were to resize the filesystem.
Continue with the real resizing only if the test run passed.
-b, --bad-sectors
Support disks having hardware errors, bad sectors with those
ntfsresize would refuse to work by default.
Prior using this option, it's strongly recommended to make a
backup by ntfsclone(8) using the --rescue option, then running
'chkdsk /f /r volume:' on Windows from the command line. If the
disk guarantee is still valid then replace it. It's defected.
Please also note, that no software can repair these type of
hardware errors. The most what they can do is to work around the
permanent defects.
This option doesn't have any effect if the disk is flawless.
-P, --no-progress-bar
Don't show progress bars.
-v, --verbose
More output.
-V, --version
Print the version number of ntfsresize and exit.
-h, --help
Display help and exit.
EXIT CODES
The exit code is 0 on success, non-zero otherwise.
KNOWN ISSUES
No reliability problem is known. If you find a bug please send an
email describing the problem to the development team at:
ntfs-3g-devel@lists.sf.net
There are a few very rarely met restrictions at present: filesystems
having unknown bad sectors, relocation of the first MFT extent and re-
sizing into the middle of a $MFTMirr extent aren't supported yet. These
cases are detected and resizing is restricted to a safe size or the
closest safe size is displayed.
Ntfsresize schedules an NTFS consistency check and after the first boot
into Windows you must see chkdsk running on a blue background. This is
intentional and no need to worry about it. Windows may force a quick
reboot after the consistency check. Moreover after repartitioning your
disk and depending on the hardware configuration, the Windows message
System Settings Change may also appear. Just acknowledge it and reboot
again.
The disk geometry handling semantic (HDIO_GETGEO ioctl) has changed in
an incompatible way in Linux 2.6 kernels and this triggered multitudi-
nous partition table corruptions resulting in unbootable Windows sys-
tems, even if NTFS was consistent, if parted(8) was involved in some
way. This problem was often attributed to ntfsresize but in fact it's
completely independent of NTFS thus ntfsresize. Moreover ntfsresize
never touches the partition table at all. By changing the 'Disk Access
Mode' to LBA in the BIOS makes booting work again, most of the time.
You can find more information about this issue in the Troubleshooting
section of the below referred Ntfsresize FAQ.
AUTHORS
ntfsresize was written by Szabolcs Szakacsits, with contributions from
Anton Altaparmakov and Richard Russon. It was ported to ntfs-3g by
Erik Larsson and Jean-Pierre Andre.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Many thanks to Anton Altaparmakov and Richard Russon for libntfs, the
excellent documentation and comments, to Gergely Madarasz, Dewey M.
Sasser and Miguel Lastra and his colleagues at the University of Grana-
da for their continuous and highly valuable help, furthermore to Erik
Meade, Martin Fick, Sandro Hawke, Dave Croal, Lorrin Nelson, Geert Hen-
drickx, Robert Bjorkman and Richard Burdick for beta testing the relo-
cation support, to Florian Eyben, Fritz Oppliger, Richard Ebling,
Sid-Ahmed Touati, Jan Kiszka, Benjamin Redelings, Christopher Haney,
Ryan Durk, Ralf Beyer, Scott Hansen, Alan Evans for the valued contri-
butions and to Theodore Ts'o whose resize2fs(8) man page originally
formed the basis of this page.
AVAILABILITY
ntfsresize is part of the ntfs-3g package and is available from:
https://github.com/tuxera/ntfs-3g/wiki/
SEE ALSO
fdisk(8), cfdisk(8), sfdisk(8), parted(8), evms(8), ntfsclone(8),
mkntfs(8), ntfsprogs(8)
ntfs-3g 2022.10.3 July 2013 NTFSRESIZE(8)
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