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I have 1 SSD and 2 HDDs - each has a capacity of 1 TB. Windows 10 is installed on the SSD while Ubuntu 18.04 is on one of the HDDs.
I need to be able to access the HDD from Windows, but I currently can't because its file system is EXT4, obviously.
I need to be able to access the HDD from Windows for a number of reasons:

  1. I want to install some of the storage-eating software for Windows on that HDD, as I don't intend to use Ubuntu on daily basis anyway.
  2. I plan to record some videos on Ubuntu, hence I need to access the video files from Windows in order to edit them in a video editor program.

What I had been trying so far to do, unsuccessfully, are the following:

  1. Using Ext2Fsd - it successfully granted me access to the HDD, but also broke Ubuntu's loading, and maybe even the whole Ubuntu partition. (though I didn't it, because whenever I came across that screen - I couldn't type anything to the command-line interface)
  2. Tried to reinstall Ubuntu, but this time to first set via the installer to format to FAT32 - it refused to. (thought of this idea because I read online that Ubuntu can read FAT32)

So now I'm lost.

What solution can I have? Thanks!

avi12
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2 Answers2

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My solution for this would be to partition the HDD with 4 partitions,

1 bootable partition for your Ubuntu partial install (type 83 formatted as ext3, ext4 or whatever flavor you like...) mount at /

2 partition (type 83, formatted same as #1) mount at /usr

3 partition (type 6,7,b,c (whichever DOS type file system you want, formatted as MSDOS) mount at /home#

4 partition (type 82 formatted as linux swap) mount as swap.

With this setup, Linux will mount the /home (/dev/hdd3) as an MSDOS filesystem and not care. Windoze will now recognize the /home directory as a MSDOS filesystem and be able to mount/read/write to it.

Hope this works for you!

Bruce Lytle
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You might try https://www.diskinternals.com/linux-reader/ However I'd be careful as they even note on the site that it ignores all security policies when saving thus you can modify any file you want

j-money
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