Accessing ext3 partitions from Windows with FS Driver

yms · 2009-09-11 12:31:01

Hi everyone,

I have a slight probem. I'm dual-booting ArchLinux and Windows. Here is my partition scheme:

/dev/sda1 (NTFS) Lenovo Recovery partition
/dev/sda2 (NTFS) Windows
/dev/sda3 (ext2) /boot
/dev/sda5 (JFS) /
/dev/sda6 (JFS) /home
/dev/sda7 (ext3) [documents] partition mounted on /media/data
/dev/sda8 (swap) swap

Everything works fine on the Linux side (of course).

The problem is that I use http://www.fs-driver.org/ to access my documents (/dev/sda7) from Windows.
This worked fine (I was using Kubuntu) but now I had to format the disk in order to install ArchLinux and FS Driver would not recognize the "documents" partition.

I think it might be because the partition is not PRIMARY but LOGICAL. Is there a way to fix this without reformatting everything (just formatting /dev/sda7 is fine with me) ?

Thank you in advance

Last edited by yms (2009-09-11 14:08:17)

ichbinesderelch · 2009-09-11 13:14:15

tried simply installing the extfs in windows again? during the installation you will be prompted for devices usw, is it shown there?

yms · 2009-09-11 13:22:21

That's the point. It is shown as a "Linux" partition ... It should appear as "ext3" and when I assiagn a drive name to it, it tells me that it is not recognized. Everything worked well with my old setup.

The only difference that might be is that it "documents" used to be on a PRIMARY partition. So I would like to format it without touching the other partitions and I am not sure how to do that. (Tools to use and whether it is a problem to add a PRIMARY partition: I don't know how to check wether I already have 4 or not)

Thanks

lestoil · 2009-09-11 17:39:50

gparted(smaller download) or Knoppix live-cd,for example, can help with formating that partition and should show primary/extended/logical partitions. Partition Magic and Acronix(?) are buy-ware for same functions. If creating a primary partition entails removing an extended partition be very careful.
(As an aside)Whatever happened to having a fat32 document/music/etc partition to share between linux and winX?

yms · 2009-09-11 20:30:00

I have a knoppix live CD and I thought about using it. But that is the point: I don't know what should happen (or what I should do) if I already have 4 primary+extended partitions. I really don't want to screw this up.

Concerning the choice of ext3, it is because I'm 99.9% of the time on Linux so I prefer to have a "Linux" filesystem that happens to be compatible with Windows to some extent. Plus, as it is my biggest partition, I don't want the file to be fragmented.

I guess I'll try to use GParted (please tell me if you know what to do in case I have to remove an extended partition) and see what happens. Using FAT32 will be (as I already planned before) my fallback.

Boris Bolgradov · 2009-09-11 21:09:47

@OP:
I have the same problem myself, though my partition is primary. I have just formatted my /home partition (ext3) and windows still can't mount it. I'll reformat it again, but this time as ext2. I'll post results in a minute.

Update: Reformatting it to ext2 seems to work. I can mount it now. Yay!

Last edited by Boris Bolgradov (2009-09-11 21:31:54)

eilenbeb · 2009-09-20 21:38:16

Hi, I just stumbled across this one and thought I'd throw in my two cents....

Something I've found about windows is that it's -very- picky about partition sizes.

For instance, on a new system of mine, I did dual booting windows/Linux from partitions on the same hard drive.
The windows partition was first. After creating my Linux partitions, windows would no longer boot, said the partition table was corrupt.
(All partitions were primary)

The solution? I created my Linux partitions using windows tools (which wasted around 10Gigs of hard drive space) and finished them off with linux tools.
Everything worked fine then.
Bottom line, Linux can use partition sizes that (some?) windows will refuse to use.

You should be able to simply remove the last 2 partitions (sda7 and sda8). Any partitioner should work (gparted, cfdisk, windows logical disk manager). Don't forget to move your documents. If you do this from your installed Linux system, don't forget to disable your swap space or you won't be able to remove that partition.
...might also need to unmount /dev/sda7 to use cfdisk... I think gparted does this automatically but don't quote me on that one...
Then you can recreate the last two partitions using windows. Then use Linux to set their types, format them, and restore your documents.

Just to simplify things with the swap space, it's probably easier to use a live distro than your installed Linux.
If your fstab uses UUID's, don't forget to update as formatting will assign new UUID's to the partitions.

... should solve at least half the problem.

laters,
b

Arch Linux

#1 2009-09-11 12:31:01

Accessing ext3 partitions from Windows with FS Driver

#2 2009-09-11 13:14:15

Re: Accessing ext3 partitions from Windows with FS Driver

#3 2009-09-11 13:22:21

Re: Accessing ext3 partitions from Windows with FS Driver

#4 2009-09-11 17:39:50

Re: Accessing ext3 partitions from Windows with FS Driver

#5 2009-09-11 20:30:00

Re: Accessing ext3 partitions from Windows with FS Driver

#6 2009-09-11 21:09:47

Re: Accessing ext3 partitions from Windows with FS Driver

#7 2009-09-20 21:38:16

Re: Accessing ext3 partitions from Windows with FS Driver

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