Mounting ext2 Partitions From Windows?

vedge asks: "Is there any serious project for software that will let you mount a Linux ext2 partition from MS-Windows 95 or NT? I saw one here but it is now unmaintained and doesn't even work on my machine. "

NT Driver for ext2

[dananderson]

For those who RTFM :-), you'll find the information you need in the Filesystem HOWTO: http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Filesystems-HOWTO-6. html [linuxdoc.org]. This includes a viewer for Win 9x and a driver for Win NT.

The NT Driver is at http://www.chat.ru/~ashedel/ext2fsnt/ [www.chat.ru]

The driver is in a format I never heard of: RAR [rarsoft.com]

Personally, I use the "ext2 tools" for Win NT. This includes command line tools e2cat, e2cd, e2cp, e2ls, e2part, e2pwd. Not elegant (command line tools), but they get the job done. To use, set the E2CWD DOS environment variable to the drive and partition (e.g., E2CWD=1:2). I don't have a URL (it's dead), but I'm sure you can find it with some searching.

Samba?

[SEWilco]

Well, I'd stick the ext2 disk in a Linux box and use Samba to mount it from the MS-Windows machine. But I suspect that for some reason you wanted an MS-Windows program which can read the ext2 contents right off the disk.

A legacy technology is an old one, generally with an interface to new tech (such as 3270 screens made accessible through an HTML web server). Is there a word for new tech being made accessible to old tech? Retro, maybe?

Re:Samba?

[Baloo Ursidae]

I've had a situation when I intended to move a file to my Windows partition before I rebooted to install something, but forgot to do so, so I had to reboot twice to go get it and install it. And another time I've had a file when I was using windows that I wanted to copy to my ext2 partition at that moment so I wouldn't forget to later.

Mounting ext2 partitions from Windows

[tequila26er]

Yes, there is a utility available at:

http://www.it.fht-esslingen.de/~zimmerma/software/ lread.htm

ext2read for Windows

[B1]

This [usc.edu]package might be what you're looking for.

The package is called called 'ext2read', and appears to be based on an older package called 'ext2tools', which gave you read-only access to ext2 partitions from Windows 95. Based on the screenshots, it looks like an explorer-type interface to your linux filesystem. It should be enough to copy files from your ext2 partitions while in Windows.

Good luck!

Re:explore2fs

[qbwiz]

If you can make it boot into windows, you probably already have root access.

Re:explore2fs

[kcarnold]

HEY! Why does that say Anonymous Coward when I'm logged in?!?!

Stupid Mozilla M14.

Re:Samba?

[Stephen]

I assume it's because it's a dual-boot machine. (Although in that case, I don't know why it's not an option to get Linux to mount the Windows partition instead).

explore2fs

[cha0s]

try this [swin.edu.au]. there are a few other nifty bits and pieces there too..

Samba is the way to go

[dlc]

I struggled with this for a while as well, and I realized that, all things considered, Samba [samba.org] is definitely the way to go. I ended up setting up a dedicated Linux box, running Samba and having it authenticate against the NT domain in which all the Windows boxen lived, and kept tons of data on the Linux box. The windows users never knew that they weren't talking to an NT box, and I got all the advantages of using Linux.

The advantages are (quickly):

• stability
• you can use any unix filesystem on the back end, since the Windows box communicates with it via SMB, and not through direct file access
• it doesn't have to run on Linux; you can use a Solaris box, for example (samba is developed on Solaris and Irix, not Linux) and this is also transparent to the Windows users
• because SMB is a network protocol, and not a kernel driver, you can share the same disk via several methods simultaneously: to Windows boxen via SMB, to *nix via NFS, to Macs using Netatalk, and, of course, you can ssh in to the box and access the files through the filesystem in the normal fashion.

Disadvantages:

• you need to have an extra box on the network (might be a problem if you have limited address space or physical space, like at your house)
• there are Windows boxen on your network (not a samba problem per se).

Cthulhu for President! [cthulhu.org]