'ntfsdir' is a prototype version of a tool that traverses directories of live NTFS partitions. This tool will list directory items that the built in Windows directory command 'dir' will not. The intent was to have a tool that could show 'all' the directory contents on a NTFS partition. Although there are currently other tools freely available that do this sort of thing for unmounted NTFS partitions, we wanted a simple cmdline tool that could do it on a live system.
'ntfsdir' does not make use of any Windows unique disk I/O API calls, allowing it to be recompiled and run on a number of operating systems, such as Linux and Mac OS X. To do this, the engine of 'ntfsdir' traverses the partition of the logical drive specified, reading raw sectors to enumerate the desired path. While the physical drive is only opened in 'read' mode (vice read/write), Windows requires 'ntfsdir' to run with 'administrator' privileges to examine a live NTFS partition.