File Systems

NTFS Recoverability

NTFS is a recoverable file system that guarantees the consistency of the volume by using standard transaction logging and recovery techniques. In the event of a disk failure, NTFS restores consistency by running a recovery procedure that accesses information stored in a log file. The NTFS recovery procedure is exact, guaranteeing that the volume is restored to a consistent state. Transaction logging requires a very small amount of overhead.

NTFS ensures the integrity of all NTFS volumes by automatically performing disk recovery operations the first time a program accesses an NTFS volume after the computer is restarted following a failure.

NTFS also uses a technique called cluster remapping to minimize the effects of a bad sector on an NTFS volume. For more information, see "Cluster Remapping" later in this chapter.

Important

If either the master boot record (MBR) or boot sector is corrupted, you might not be able to access data on the volume. Recovery from errors with the MBR or the boot sector is discussed in "Repair, Recovery, and Restore" in this book.