Atomic File Replacement on NTFS Is Not rename + fsync

Thu, 06 Aug 2026 21:27:00 -0700

shipmates writes a lot of small state files that other processes read. Voyage plans and state, tracker files. Each of them has to be replaced atomically, so a reader sees the old file or the new one and never half of each. Each also has to be replaced durably. When the function returns success, a power cut doesn’t take it back. Every Unix programmer knows the recipe for that. It doesn’t work on Windows, and the reasons are more interesting than “Windows is different”.

Rescuing a Windows Dynamic Disk Over USB with WSL2 and USB/IP

Sat, 01 Aug 2026 13:15:00 -0700

I pulled a 1 TB NVMe out of an old Windows box, dropped it in a USB enclosure and plugged it in. Windows showed nothing. No drive letter, no “initialize this disk” prompt, nothing in Explorer. Disk Management listed it as Invalid. The enclosure’s booklet said to “bring the disk online”, which silently did nothing. The data was completely intact. Windows was refusing on policy grounds, not because anything was broken. Getting it back meant going around the Windows storage stack entirely. I handed the raw USB device to a Linux kernel that doesn’t share Windows’ opinions.

Ntfs on Luther Monson

Atomic File Replacement on NTFS Is Not rename + fsync

Rescuing a Windows Dynamic Disk Over USB with WSL2 and USB/IP