J.O. Aho wrote:
[..]
> The best option IMHO would be to make a partition that is vfat, which
can be
> used from both MSW and linux without any larger risks for damage on
the
> filesystem.
[..]

is this the "best" way to transfer files between ntfs and ex3?
<http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/index.html> is the driver for
mounting ntfs from ext3, but are there alternative drivers? what's the
safest way to set this up, pls?

this is taking up too much time, i'm going to just go buy a cd-rw i
think. oh well.

>>The best option IMHO would be to make a partition that is vfat, which
> can be
>>used from both MSW and linux without any larger risks for damage on
> the
>>filesystem.

> is this the "best" way to transfer files between ntfs and ex3?
> <http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/index.html> is the driver for
> mounting ntfs from ext3, but are there alternative drivers? what's the
> safest way to set this up, pls?

You can install the NTFS driver you mentioned above, which will allow
you to read the NTFS filesystem from Linux (it lets you mount an NTFS
partition, not specifically "from ext3" as you say).

Rich

isn't ext3, like ntfs, a type of filesystem? if so, the ntfs partition
would be mounted from ext3. or not?

heh, just came across this link <http://ext2fsd.sourceforge.net/> which
purports "This project is an ext2 file system driver for
winnt/win2k/winxp."

ext3 is ext2 with logging, so this windows driver works with either an
ext2 or ext3 filesystem, yes/no?

it looks like both drivers are very much caveat emptor, what with all
the talk about corrupting partitions :(


--Thufir Hawat

<http://www.it.fht-esslingen.de/~zimmerma/software/ltools.html>

the swing gui shows my linux partitions right off the bat!

what are the downsides to LTOOLS? because ntfs "changes" from time to
time it sounds risky to do this from linux. as LTOOLS works from
windows it "seems" safer. any logic to that? anecdotal evidence?
thanks,

Thufir Hawat
(who thinks he just found the holy grail)

On 2005-01-02, thufir.hawat <thufir.hawat> wrote:

> isn't ext3, like ntfs, a type of filesystem?

Yes...

> if so, the ntfs partition would be mounted from ext3. or not?

Not sure what you mean here...

You can only have one filesystem per partition, so you could mount your
ntfs filesystem from *linux* but not from ext3.

> heh, just came across this link <http://ext2fsd.sourceforge.net/> which
> purports "This project is an ext2 file system driver for
> winnt/win2k/winxp."
>
> ext3 is ext2 with logging, so this windows driver works with either an
> ext2 or ext3 filesystem, yes/no?

Yep, as long as you're only *reading* data from the filesystem. If you try
*writing* data to the ext3 filesystem from Windows you'll hose the journal
at a minimum; maybe worse.

> it looks like both drivers are very much caveat emptor, what with all
> the talk about corrupting partitions :(

Either should work fine for *reading* data from the foreign filesystem;
all bets are off when it comes to *writing*.

One method I've used to write to ntfs filesystems from linux involves
using Windows running from VMWare under linux. Configure your VMWare
windows installation to access the native ntfs filesystem and enable
"sharing" that drive. Then use samba from linux to access the shared drive
through VMWare. This uses the real Microsoft ntfs filesystem support to
access the ntfs filesystem, so it is safe.

This would probably work the other way as well (linux running in VMWare
under Windows) to safely write to a linux filesystem from Windows,
although I haven't tried it myself.

John Thompson wrote:

[..]
> > it looks like both drivers are very much caveat emptor, what with
all
> > the talk about corrupting partitions :(
>
> Either should work fine for *reading* data from the foreign
filesystem;
> all bets are off when it comes to *writing*.

ltools succesfully moved some files from win2k to linux. in retrospect
the risk of physical damage, however slight, to the hard drive makes
that a bonehead move...but it worked at least once!

> One method I've used to write to ntfs filesystems from linux involves

> using Windows running from VMWare under linux. Configure your VMWare
> windows installation to access the native ntfs filesystem and enable
> "sharing" that drive. Then use samba from linux to access the shared
drive
> through VMWare. This uses the real Microsoft ntfs filesystem support
to
> access the ntfs filesystem, so it is safe.
[..]

i did a clean install of win2k to change the ntfs to fat32. the hassle
of that seemed preferable to learning VMWare and samba for me. it'd be
an unknown, possibly steep, learning curve. wouldn't it be more
expedient for every dual boot'er to drop ntfs for fat32 because of
these problems?

that being said, it's good to know there's an actual solution to that
dilemna :)

On 2005-01-02, thufir.hawat <thufir.hawat> wrote:

> John Thompson wrote:
>
> [..]
>> > it looks like both drivers are very much caveat emptor, what with
> all
>> > the talk about corrupting partitions :(
>>
>> Either should work fine for *reading* data from the foreign
> filesystem;
>> all bets are off when it comes to *writing*.
>
> ltools succesfully moved some files from win2k to linux. in retrospect
> the risk of physical damage, however slight, to the hard drive makes
> that a bonehead move...but it worked at least once!

You won't get physical damage to the drive from this -- unless you drop
the drive on the floor while transferrring the files. :-)

But you can damage the filesystem, either the metadata or the real data or
both.

> i did a clean install of win2k to change the ntfs to fat32. the hassle
> of that seemed preferable to learning VMWare and samba for me. it'd be
> an unknown, possibly steep, learning curve. wouldn't it be more
> expedient for every dual boot'er to drop ntfs for fat32 because of
> these problems?

Yeah, except for the fact that FAT, in any of its flavors, sucks. Another
option would be to create a separate FAT partition explicitly for the data
you intend to transfer back and forth between linux and Windows. That way
your main Windows partition could stay as NTFS at least.