.\" Copyright (c) 2014 Jean-Pierre Andre
.\" This file may be copied under the terms of the GNU Public License.
.\"
.TH NTFSWIPE 8 "June 2014" "ntfs-3g 2022.10.3"
.SH NAME
ntfswipe \- overwrite unused space on an NTFS volume
.SH SYNOPSIS
\fBntfswipe\fR [\fIoptions\fR] \fIdevice\fR
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B ntfswipe
clears all or part of unused space on an NTFS volume by overwriting
with zeroes or random bytes.
.SH OPTIONS
Below is a summary of all the options that
.B ntfswipe
accepts.  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 \-fv
is equivalent to
.BR "\-f \-v" .
Long named options can be abbreviated to any unique prefix of their name.
.TP
\fB\-a\fR, \fB\-\-all\fR
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.
.TP
\fB\-b\fR, \fB\-\-bytes\fR 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.
.TP
\fB\-c\fR, \fB\-\-count\fR NUM
Define the number of times the unused space is to be overwritten. If both
options \fB\-\-bytes\fR and \fB\-\-count\fR are set, the space is
repeatedly overwritten this number of times by each of the values in the list.
.TP
\fB\-d\fR, \fB\-\-directory\fR
Wipe all the directory indexes, which may contain names of deleted files.
.TP
\fB\-f\fR, \fB\-\-force\fR
This will override some sensible defaults, such as not using a mounted volume.
Use this option with caution.
.TP
\fB\-h\fR, \fB\-\-help\fR
Show a list of options with a brief description of each one.
.TP
\fB\-i\fR, \fB\-\-info\fR
Display details about unused space, without wiping anything.
.TP
\fB\-l\fR, \fB\-\-logfile\fR
Overwrite the logfile (update journal).
.TP
\fB\-m\fR, \fB\-\-mft\fR
Overwrite the unused space in the MFT (main file table, which contains the
file names, and the contents of short files).
.TP
\fB\-n\fR, \fB\-\-no-action\fR
Executes the wiping process without writing to device.
.TP
\fB\-p\fR, \fB\-\-pagefile\fR
Overwrite the Windows swap space.
.TP
\fB\-q\fR, \fB\-\-quiet\fR
Suppress some debug/warning/error messages.
.TP
\fB\-s\fR, \fB\-\-undel\fR
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
\fB\-\-bytes\fR and the replacement bytes are random ones or taken from a
standard list.
.TP
\fB\-t\fR, \fB\-\-tails\fR
Overwrite the space at the end of files which is unused, but allocated
because the allocations are always done by full clusters.
.TP
\fB\-u\fR, \fB\-\-unused\fR
Overwrite the space which is currently not allocated to any file (but
may have been used in the past).
.TP
\fB\-U\fR, \fB\-\-unused-fast\fR
Overwrite the space which is currently not allocated to any file, trying
not to overwrite the space not written to since the previous wiping.
.TP
\fB\-v\fR, \fB\-\-verbose\fR
Display more debug/warning/error messages. This option may be used twice
to display even more messages.
.TP
\fB\-V\fR, \fB\-\-version\fR
Show the version number, copyright and license of
.BR ntfswipe .
.SH EXAMPLES
Wipe out all unused space in an NTFS volume.
.RS
.sp
.B ntfswipe -a /dev/sda1
.sp
.RE
Wipe out all deleted file names from an NTFS volume.
.RS
.sp
.B ntfswipe -dms /dev/sda1
.sp
.RE
.SH BUGS
There are no known problems with
.BR ntfswipe .
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 ntfswipe
was written by Richard Russon, Anton Altaparmakov and Yura Pakhuchiy.
It was ported to ntfs-3g by Erik Larsson.
.SH AVAILABILITY
.B ntfswipe
is part of the
.B ntfs-3g
package and is available from:
.br
.nh
https://github.com/tuxera/ntfs-3g/wiki/
.hy
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR ntfs-3g (8),
.BR ntfsls (8),
.BR ntfsprogs (8)