How can I view the NTFS system files?

Question

For example, the master file table $Mft is one of the NTFS system files.

How can I view the properties of these files (e.g. size)?

Answer 1

You can't do this from within Windows itself – the NTFS driver does not allow user-space to access the internal structures.

From Linux, use ntfsinfo from ntfsprogs.

(Simple ls -l '$Mft' will work but is unlikely to display the correct size as many of these files don't even have a ::$DATA stream.)