Discussion on:

Enable the mounting of ext2/3 file systems on a Windows machine

Thanks for the "heads up".

Thanx Jack, I havent tried it yet but when I have to use a Winblows machine I will try this method.

I was looking for something that does not too long ago.

This tool from what you posted sounds really useful. I had been using Partition Magic for some time and until now I ever heard of Ext2Fsd. I know there is Ntfs-3g which allows you to manipulate an NTFS filesystem from a Linux system. Has anyone heard of Total Commander (http://www.ghisler.com/featurel.htm) or Diskinternals (http://www.diskinternals.com/reader-for-tc/), they actually give you some other options for mounting ext2/3/4 file systems into NTFS directories including the SMB/CIFS support, which is what I think is one of the objectives you might have in mind when mounting a ext 2/3/4 drive and its contents into a NTFS folder and then going on to set up network shares. Especially for network admins who are working Samba File Servers/Windows File Servers.


I had this problems mounting a NTFS file s

I migrated my LInux over to EXT 4 a year ago. this tool is useless for me. Knoppix works, though.

Steps

1. Insert Knoppix disk.

2. Start Computer.

3. Mount Linux Drive.

4. Mount Windows Drive. (note that this can be on a separate machine, if on a network. Or, you can use a thumb dirve.)

5. Copy the file. Remember to give it a file extension, if not using one on Linux.

7. Log out and shut down.

That is good for a "dual boot" partitioned system (or on an external HD), but what about reading the "virtual disks"? For example, I have a Wubi install on one unit and use Virtual Box on another (although I might switch to VM Ware as Virtual Box has a conflict with Windows 7 that after closing out all activity and shutting down Win. 7, it goes into a loop - go to bed, check later and it is still clocking"). I seem to recall that Virtual Box supports 3 or 4 Virtual Disk types - not sure what or how many VM Ware supports. Likewise with other VMs (XEN, ???).

Going back years there have been and still are other tools to access ext2 thru 4 and even Reiser.
Explore2fs, its successor Virtual Volumes, and the old but still maintained e2fsprogs command line utils.
I used to use Explore2fs way back when as an easy way to get something off my Slackware partition.
With the use of NASes, syncing and whatnot I'd forgotten about these tools.

These instructions were a god-send until I realised that my drive was reporting very slightly differently to your screenshots below - I've followed all of the instructions as per the guidance above, but Windows Explorer still cannot mount the drive and read the files.

I have two drives that were previously installed in a Linksys NAS200 device. The device reported one of the drives as having failed, and I removed to check whether it was the device or the drives. Windows Disk Management sees both drives just fine and reports them as healthy - but cannot display them in Windows Explorer (am using Win 7 Pro). I had hoped that EXT2FSD was going to sort it - but thus far it hasn't. Am I missing something fundamental here?

All I want to do is to be able to read the drives and copy off the data - I intend to format the drives thereafter and don't intend using the NAS200 again as it clearly doesn't play well in the Windows environment! I've got both drives hooked up via an external SATA to USB connector at the moment.


PS - have also tried EXT2READ and EXPLORE2FS - neither of these even picked up the drives being there! At least EXT2FSD can actually see the drives even though I can't yet access them!!