Truncate a file on an ntfs volume
ntfstruncate [options] device file [attr-type [attr-name]] new-length
ntfstruncate truncates (or extends) a specified attribute belonging to a file or directory, to a specified length.
Below is a summary of all the options that ntfstruncate 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.
-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.
-l
Display licensing information.
-n, --no-action
Simulate the truncation without actually write to device.
-q, --quiet
Suppress some debug/warning/error messages.
-v, --verbose
Display more debug/warning/error messages.
-V, --version
Show the version number, copyright and license of ntfstruncate.
attr-type
Define a particular attribute type to be truncated (advanced use only). By default, the unnamed $DATA attribute (the contents of a plain file) will be truncated. The attribute has to be specified by a number in decimal or hexadecimal :
| Hex | Decimal | Name |
|---|---|---|
| 0x10 | 16 | "$STANDARD_INFORMATION" |
| 0x20 | 32 | "$ATTRIBUTE_LIST" |
| 0x30 | 48 | "$FILE_NAME" |
| 0x40 | 64 | "$OBJECT_ID" |
| 0x50 | 80 | "$SECURITY_DESCRIPTOR" |
| 0x60 | 96 | "$VOLUME_NAME" |
| 0x70 | 112 | "$VOLUME_INFORMATION" |
| 0x80 | 128 | "$DATA" |
| 0x90 | 144 | "$INDEX_ROOT" |
| 0xA0 | 160 | "$INDEX_ALLOCATION" |
| 0xB0 | 176 | "$BITMAP" |
| 0xC0 | 192 | "$REPARSE_POINT" |
| 0xD0 | 208 | "$EA_INFORMATION" |
| 0xE0 | 224 | "$EA" |
| 0xF0 | 240 | "$PROPERTY_SET" |
| 0x100 | 256 | "$LOGGED_UTILITY_STREAM" |
attr-name
Define the name of the particular attribute type to be truncated (advanced use only).
new-length
Specify the target size of the file. It will be rounded up to a multiple of the cluster size. A suffix of K, M, G, T, P or E may be appended to mean a multiplicative factor of a power of 1000. Similarly a suffix of Ki, Mi, Gi, Ti, Pi or Ei may be appended to mean a multiplicative factor of a power of 1024.
Resize to 100MB the file database.db located in the Data directory which is at the root of an NTFS file system.
ntfstruncate /dev/sda1 Data/database.db 100M
There are no known problems with ntfstruncate. If you find a bug, please send an email describing the problem to the development team:
ntfstruncate was written by Anton Altaparmakov.
ntfstruncate is part of the ntfs-3g package and is available from:
http://www.tuxera.com/community/