S. P. T. Krishnan's take on things…

Now you can ! … read on

I have always had the problem of losing my data in one of my operating systems’ partitions. If you are like me, you know the problem. Simply-stated, I dual-boot [Windows/Linux] every computer I lay my hands on…well, except my servers where there is only Linux always !

I know of atleast two methods to access the linux filesystem data in windows, each with its own pros and cons. If you guys know more ways with superset of features compared to those being offered by these marvellous pieces of code, simple post a comment.

I knew of the first method several years ago and was using it sporadically because it did not have features I required. The second method which I discovered a few days ago on the net, that prompted me to write this post, fullfills those requirements.

Method 1:

Name: explore2fs
URL: http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/explore2fs.htm
Author: John Newbigin

This piece of software acts like windows explorer, with the exception it explores linux ext2 and ext3 filesystems.

It provides only read-access and according to its website, as on this day of writing, the write support is permanently removed. This is good for people who have fear that they might corrupt the filesystem while accesing from a cross-platform tool !

Another drawback I see in this tool is that native applications running in windows cannot access the data in ext2/3 filesystems directly i.e., let say you have a text document created using openoffice in linux and saved as .doc in a ext3 filesystem. Now you want OfficeXP running in Windows to access this file…you can’t with this tool. To have such a facility you need something called a filesystem driver and this tool doesn’t belong to this class !

However, the author is developing a filesystem driver, according to this URL
http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/ext2ifs.htm [early release]

Method 2:

I WILL NOW INTRODUCE THE SECOND SOFTWARE WHICH I USE MYSELF AND THAT PROMPTED ME WRITE THIS POST !

Name: FS-DRIVER
URL: http://www.fs-driver.org/
Author: Stephan Schreiber

This software, simply stated, is a amazing piece of code I have seen in a long time which bridges the gap between application-rich [,a relative measure,] Windows OS and the simple, stable and cool Linux OS that is creating IT waves everywhere; I am surfing this wave. The earlier one is the GRUB boot loader which gave a fair share in an otherwise Windows only system.

So, what does this do ? Well, it does what method 1 does and what doesn’t do as well. It allows you to write to the linux filesystem. I have tried it and no problems so far. Next, it allows native applications on Windows to access the ext file systems. For example, the scenario with MS Office and Openoffice described earlier works with this code.

All is well but you get these two questions. Why do I need it in the first place and aren’t there any problems with it ?

First, yes you can share data with fat32 filesystem between windows and linux. But, you can do it better; use a ext filesystem. ext3 filesystem are directly recognised by Linux and this software makes it possible to use it under Windows.

Second, I see that there are some small teething problems which I faced while using this software. Don’t know who is responsible though, Windows or fs-driver? Ok, here is what I experience. I need to plug-in the device and fire up fs-driver control panel and assign drive letters to them. You can assign drive letters to HDD partitions or even usb flash drives. Fine so far. However, next time if you boot windows without these usb flash disks, windows explorer shows [?] marks for these drive letters. Not quite elegent. I would expect either windows to clean-up or fs-driver to it. However, this is not a show-stopper. You can go back to the control panel and remove the entry manually. Windows explorer cleans instantly. The problem is, next time you plug in the device, you need to add in the entry manually. Believe me, after some time, you will decide to leave the question marks alone !

That’s it for this post !

Some others in the same class [I haven't tried it though]:

http://ext2fsd.sourceforge.net/#ext2fsd

http://ashedel.chat.ru/ext2fsnt/