Reading Ext3 in WinXP

[dabossss]

I just installed Fedora on my new laptop. I used Partition Magic to format a (large) partition of the main drive into Ext3 format. Then I installed Fedora on it. I can read the FAT32 Windows drive from Fedora (I mounted it on startup), but no matter how hard I try I can't seem to read the Linux partition from WinXP.
I've tried several different programs, as well as drivers to make Windows recognize the file system. The problem isn't so much that Windows can't read it, but rather that its not reading the right thing. The drive name from Windows is "/boot", and it only contains all the boot stuff for linux. It doesn't actually show the large (40+Gb) amount of space and the files stored there.
Anyone have similar issues? Am I doing something wrong? I'm a linux noob so any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[Wraithe]

I personally don't want WINFLAWS to see linux anyway but if you can see /boot is there a way to alter that to just / and see what is there..
/boot is only a directory under / so if you can see that then you should be able to access / which as you may know is the root directory(or the file system start)


one other thing is /boot in the same partition as / ..

[AlexK]

Windows by default won't see any linux partition, you need 3rd party tools to see it. And I don't think PM works in this case.

If you want to see your ext3 partition in XP, google around for this program explore2fs

[dabossss]

Yeah I am using 3rd party tools. I've tried explore2fs - it gave me the /boot thing. Also, I tried another tool (can't remember the name) which integrates intself into windows and makes it (supposedly) recognize the linux partition as a harddrive (this one is NOT from the maker(s) of explore2fs) - this gave the same results, and the drive was actually listed as "/boot (drive letter".

So yeah for some reason its only showing that part of it. I know there's more - another 40 gigs or so!!!

[kavalakala]

Are you sure that you are trying to access the right partition?
Usually the installers like Fedora's let user decide the main partition size (40Gb in your case), but they still configure filesystems how they like. For example, you may have the boot partition located at the beginning of your drive and main partition second. Because boot partition is not mandatory, it can be created or not, and in that case I think you are trying to access this boot partition, where naturally is nothing more than boot stuff. If your boot partition is hda1, then your main partition might be hda2 or hda5, depending how the installer configured your swap. You can find it out by using for example cfdisk, which is my favourite tool to examine disks. You might also want to try it (I think it's easier to use than the original fdisk). And this /boot: -drive letter points that you are trying to access only your boot partition.

[dabossss]

I just checked with Parition Magic and it lists C:\ as FAT32, G:\ as Ext3 and another drive, D:\ as "Type 8E". D:\ *has* been showing up in explorer, but its empty. Is there any way to read this "Type 8E" drive from windows?

[AlexK]

I think that partition may be corrupted, there is no 8E in the hex list of partition codes.

Before deleting it, launch Linux and look at output from fdisk -l and a drive which appears after your C:\ drive would be this mystery D drive.

[dabossss]

[root@localhost ~]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 100.0 GB, 100030242816 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 12161 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 1 383 3076416 12 Compaq diagnostics
/dev/hda2 * 384 6241 47054385 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hda3 6242 12161 47552400 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5 6242 6254 104391 83 Linux
/dev/hda6 6255 12161 47447946 8e Linux LVM

Thats the fdisk output. 8E *is* a type... whatever Linux LVM is. Any way of reading this file system from windows?

[kavalakala]

Your /dev/hda6 seems to be that large partition and /dev/hda5 the boot partition. LVM means "Logical Volume Manager". More information about LVM can be found here http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/ .

[laur3ooo]

tried it works fine..