Ubuntu/Vista - Shared partition for files/music/pics?

[Rarehunter]

Hey all,

I recently dual booted with both Vista and Ubuntu 9.04. I have a Windows partition, an Ubuntu partition and a /home partition that is meant to be shared space between Vista and Ubuntu.

My goal is to be able to have a partition where I keep all my documents, music, pics, and files that both OS's can read/write off of.

When installing Ubuntu, I chose the option to import my documents from Vista. However, does this create a separate copy of all my documents in Vista or is it actually the same documents?

Also, in Ubuntu, when opening the Computer folder, I see a /home folder and then a /Windows folder (which is what I called my windows partition). However, all my documents that were originally in Windows are in my windows folder and NOT in my /home folder.

How do I set up the shared partition so that I can share files between the OS's? Where should I put my files? I do NOT have VMWare or Xen so please do not suggest anything that has to do with that.

Again, my goal is to be able to, say, edit a document in Linux, save it and when I boot up Vista, I have that edited file. Also, when I download a picture off the Internet in Vista and save it, I will have that saved picture also in Linux.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[Hal343]

If you want to share /home partition it should be formatted ntfs, so Vista can see it and write to it. It also should have a different name, as linux has /home directory and may get confused. Make sure ntfs-3g is installed in Ubuntu so it can write to shared partition. You should be able to have files saved there from linux.
To answer the question, the files would just be copied to /home directory in linux on installation..

[Rarehunter]

To clarify,

I originally had 230 GB of hard disk space devoted to Windows Vista. Windows has its own My Documents, My Music and My Pictures folders.

Now, I want to install Ubuntu 9.04. I resized my hard drive to allow Vista 50 GB of space (ntfs; Mount point /windows) , then partitioned 50 GB for Linux (ext3; Mount point /), 4 GB for swap space and left the remaining 126 GB as a shared partition between Linux and Vista (I called it /home; should I not have done this?)

Now, in Linux, in Computer, I see a /home directory with My Documents, My Music and My Pictures folder but there are no files in it. I also see a /windows folder that has all my Windows files in it.

When I boot up Vista, I simply see a C:// drive that only has 50 GB on it. There are no other drives (other than the CD/DVD drive). I assume I have to do something with mounting? How do I get my documents, pics and music into the 126 GB shared space and make it accessible to both Linux and Vista? I cannot see this space.

If anybody has a detailed explanation or a step-by-step walkthrough of how I achieve this, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

[dale456654]

When you installed Ubuntu you chose to have the shared partition an ext2 or ext3 partition. Vista does not have support for these file systems.

The easy way is to install this on windows:
Ext2 IFS For Windows


The other way is the reformat your shared partition as NTFS.
This way will make reading and writing from Ubuntu Linux onto your shared partition painfully slow.

Hope this helps!
Dale

[devils casper]

I would suggest you to create NTFS partition for data sharing. Ubuntu and most of other Linux distros support NTFS read/write out of box.

[Rarehunter]

So, when I install Ubuntu, I will actually have to partition the remaining space, say, into an ntfs partition rather than just leaving it as "free space"?

Also, what mount point should I use for a shared partition? Should I make it logical or primary?

When I create an ntfs shared partition, will Vista be able to see it? When I go under Disk Management in Vista, I see all my partitions but can only access the C:// partition.

[dale456654]

If Ubuntu is already installed then there's no need to install it again.

In Ubuntu open terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install gparted

Then open Gparted and you can format the shared ext2/ext3 partition to NTFS from there.

[memdump]

There is no such thinlk like a shared partition and a understand what you a asking you what to have assces to you files from linux and windows .Create a ntfs partition with size you choose separate form others aand use ntfs-3g module to accses form linux
put module in /etc/modules create mount point in /etc/fstab and vooalla

[Rarehunter]

I have opened up GParted and see my partitions but I cannot format my shared partition into NTFS because it says my "/home device is currently in use." Also, what does mounting and unmounting a partition mean? Do I need to unmount it first in order to format it? How does the whole process work?

I can't seem to format it....

[dale456654]

If the shared partition is mounted as /home then it will not allow you to format it.

I would suggest that you make a new partition and then format that as NTFS. You may have to re size other partitions to make the free space.

This can then be the shared drive.