Metafiles
  Most of the ntfs configuration is controlled by metafiles.
    Several of which are kept at specific locations of the volume.
   
  Some of these :

  $ATTRDEF - definitions of additional attributes 
    other than  readonly, system, hidden, etc.

  $BITMAP - drive's cluster use map.

  $BADCLUS - list of discovered bad clusters.

  $BOOT - volume bootstrap if volume bootable.

  $LOGFILE - logs transactions (Journal for recovery purposes).
    * No way to disable.

  $MFT - master file table

  $MFTMIRR - copy of 1st 26 records of MFT (stored in middle of disk)

  $QUOTA - disk quota - only active on 2000, XP, and newer.

  $VOLUME - volume (partition) serial number, creation time, and dirty flag. 
     When shutting down, indicates need to writeout buffers in memory.
       Or after crash, indicates need to run scandisk or other recoverery.