README

Command-line utility using ntfs-3g tools to copy directories from NTFS partition

Purpose

This is a tool to recursively copy a directory from an NTFS partition. "Recursively" means it is copied with contents (including files and subdirectories, up to a specified depth).

Under the hood, this tool uses ntfsls and ntfscat utilities from ntfs-3g. These underlying ntfs-3g utilities work on an NTFS partition without mounting it. This is useful when you cannot mount the partition, e.g. because the hard disk is physically damaged. In such case, the ntfs-3g tools may still allow to extract at least some files from the partition.

Usage

Compile using Free Pascal Compiler, simply execute

fpc ntfs-cp-recursive.lpr

Run like

sudo ntfs-cp-recursive [OPTIONS...] DEVICE SOURCE-PATH

Allowed OPTIONS are:

• --depth DEPTH : limit recursion depth. Use -1 (default) to not limit depth.
• --dry-run : do not copy files or create directories. In effect we will only list what would be done.
• --exclude MASK : add given mask to exclude directories and files from copying. Use it multiple times to exclude many things.

For example:

# Copy stuff from c:/cygwin64/home/michalis on Windows.
sudo ntfs-cp-recursive --dry-run /dev/sda1 cygwin64/home/michalis
sudo ntfs-cp-recursive /dev/sda1 cygwin64/home/michalis

The indicated path is copied into the current directory. In the example above, after executing sudo ntfs-cp-recursive /dev/sda1 cygwin64/home/michalis, you will see a subdirectory michalis in the current dir.

Notes

• You should run it as root, as NTFS tools need direct access to disk devices. That's why I show sudo in examples above.
• The process is quite slow (definitely much slower than using a mounted partition). Use --exclude to omit subdirectories and files that are not interesting.
• Note that we pass --force underneath to ntfs-3g tools, to deal with dirty disks (the purpose of this tool is to be used on badly damaged disks).
• We create output subdirectories if necessary. You can rerun the script multiple times, with ever increasing --depth, to get more and more files.
• If you need to recover NTFS stuff, see also other tools from ntfs-3g, like ntfsclone with --rescue.

License

Copyright Michalis Kamburelis.

License: GNU GPL >= 3.