These metafiles are treated specially by Windows, handled directly by the NTFS.SYS driver and are difficult to directly view: special purpose-built tools are needed. As of Windows 7, the NTFS driver completely prohibits user access, resulting in a BSoD whenever an attempt to execute a metadata file is made. One such tool is the nfi.exe ("NTFS File Sector Information Utility") that is freely distributed as part of the Microsoft "OEM Support Tools". For example, to obtain information on the "$MFT"-Master File Table Segment the following command is used: Another way to bypass the restriction is to use 7-Zip's file manager and go to the low-level NTFS path \\.\X:\ (where X:\ resembles any drive/partition). Here, 3 new folders will appear: $EXTEND, [DELETED] (a pseudo-folder that 7-Zip uses to attach files deleted from the file system to view), and [SYSTEM] (another pseudo-folder that contains all the NTFS metadata files). This trick can be used from removable devices (USB flash drives, external hard drives, SD cards, etc.) inside Windows, but doing this on the active partition requires offline access (namely WinRE).
these metafiles are treated specially by windows handled directly by the ntfssys driver and are difficult to directly view special purpose-built tools are needed as of windows 7 the ntfs driver completely prohibits user access resulting in a bsod whenever an attempt to execute a metadata file is made one such tool is the nfiexe ("ntfs file sector information utility") that is freely distributed as part of the microsoft "oem support tools" for example to obtain information on the "$mft"-master file table segment the following command is used another way to bypass the restriction is to use 7-zip's file manager and go to the low-level ntfs path \\\x\ (where x\ resembles any drive/partition) here 3 new folders will appear $extend [deleted] (a pseudo-folder that 7-zip uses to attach files deleted from the file system to view) and [system] (another pseudo-folder that contains all the ntfs metadata files) this trick can be used from removable devices (usb flash drives external hard drives sd cards etc) inside windows but doing this on the active partition requires offline access (namely winre)