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Best tools to access Linux Partitions from Windows

by | Thursday, 03rd Jan 2008 | 19 Comments | Share

If you dual boot with Windows and Linux, and have data spread across different partitions on Linux and Windows, you should be really in for some issues.

It happens so sometimes you need to access your files on Linux partitions from Windows, and you realize it isn’t possible easily. Not really, with these tools in hand – it’s very easy for you to access files on your Linux partitions from Windows:


Digg!

DiskInternals Linux Reader – Download

linreader1.png

DiskInternals Linux Reader has a Windows Explorer like interface, and can provide access to Ext2 and Ext3 Linux partitions from Windows. You can extract files easily from those linux partitions to your Windows partitions. You can’t use this tool to write on those partitions, though.

Ext2 Installable File System for Windows – Download

eifw.gif

A bit better than the above tool, this utility can give you both read and write access to Ext2 and Ext3 Filesystems from Windows. Plus, once you have this installed, Windows can use it your Linux partition as a paging file as well. a

Another similar tool is this one.

rfsd: ReiserDriver – Download

ReiserDriver allows access to ReiserFS partitions from Windows. The partitions appear like other filesystems, and can be accessed by any windows application. This is yet in kinda like pre-release stage, and installation should prove tedious for newbies.

Any other tools that I missed out? Tell everyone in the comments.

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A 16 year old Techie, High School Student, Blogger and Part Time Freelance Writer from India. He writes about computers and software at Killer Tech Tips

Shankar Ganesh has written

The author of this post can be contacted at shankar@techie-buzz.com

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  1. Techdune on January 3rd, 2008 at 12:04 pm #

    Thanks Shankar,
    You always come up with something useful..:)

  2. Ashfame on January 4th, 2008 at 10:10 am #

    Thanks for sharing. I am gonna need it soon. :D Dugg

  3. Madhur Kapoor on January 6th, 2008 at 7:16 am #

    I always reqd something like this.

  4. Jebus Black on January 7th, 2008 at 5:10 am #

    Thank you much, I messed up my linux system on a dual boot a couple months ago, but decided not to tear it down and start over as a result of a rare torrent I had downloaded onto that partition,… after stumbling this, I’ve got the file back now, and can reclaim those lost gigs so to start over…

    • Keith Dsouza on January 7th, 2008 at 1:54 pm #

      @Jebus Glad you found this useful and it helped you recover your files.

  6. medicine on January 10th, 2009 at 3:35 pm #

    I always reqd something like this

  7. Streaming-film in streaming gratis on January 30th, 2009 at 7:45 pm #

    great post. But I prefer only linux for my pc.
    Thank you

  8. Hammock Swing on August 28th, 2009 at 12:15 pm #

    I had a similar problem like Jebus and was just browsing your favourite posts and found this. I will try to get my linux system back up now after reading this. After i browse over your website a bit more :)

  9. Make|Money|Online on October 13th, 2009 at 3:28 am #

    great tool i will try this if i need.

  10. PeacebyJesus on December 9th, 2009 at 3:47 am #

    I tried Linux reader, but honestly, its politically correct EULA would exclude just about anyone takes any kind of moral or ideological stand, however objectively, as, "use…of this SOFTWARE together with material that is … displaying prejudice based on religion, …sexual orientation…is strictly prohibited."

  11. mike on January 21st, 2010 at 6:09 pm #

    Does the LinuxReader work? I installed it and it sees the linux drives but i can't open any drive to view the files on it. Maybe I'm missing something? I'm using ubuntu 9.10 with grub2.

    • rude jokes on April 17th, 2010 at 2:53 am #

      Sadly, this doesn't work for nor on any of the computers I've tried it. Perhaps this is some random bug or dunno

  12. Sinavlar on February 15th, 2010 at 7:32 pm #

    thanks ReiserDriver.I think it will be useful

  13. bounce house on May 5th, 2010 at 10:01 pm #

    When I see partition, I get instant flashbacks when I bought a Mac and partitioned part of the hard drive so I had Windows on it also. Well, a year later the Windows side died and the Mac still works perfectly. No clue what happened!

  14. Aminouvic on June 3rd, 2010 at 9:05 am #

    Greetings from Algeria!

    well I am having problems accessing linux partitions from windows 7, I've tried LinuxReader: it recognizes the partition but does open them.

    Please Help

  15. Greg Zeng on July 31st, 2010 at 9:48 am #

    We need EXT4 & the latest format to replace EXT4 (on OpenSuse 11.3)