Windows and any Linux distribution then I’m sure you would not have any trouble in accessing Windows files & folders in Linux because Linux distributions mount all Windows partition automatically. But what if you need to access any Linux files in your Windows OS then how to do that? This is what this article is all about. Windows does not mount any Linux partition automatically but we can do it. Let’s see how to access Linux partitions (Ext4 etc.) in Windows. If you are dual booting and anydistribution then I’m sure you would not have any trouble in accessing Windows files & folders in Linux because Linux distributions mount all Windows partition automatically. But what if you need to access anyin your Windows OS then how to do that? This is what this article is all about. Windows does not mount any Linux partition automatically but we can do it. Let’s see how to access Linux partitions (Ext4 etc.) in Windows.

Windows does not allow you to mount your Linux partitions with some built-in tools. So you often have to boot into Linux to access files. Now you won’t face this problem again because there are some good and easy ways to access your Linux partitions in Windows without even booting into Linux. Please don’t forget to take the poll below after reading this article. Also, tell us if you use dual-booting at all or you use VirtualMachines.

Ext2Fsd

Ext2Fsd is a tool in Windows that can easily mount Linux partitions and you can access each file from Linux partitions. This tool is nice and saves so much time when you’re dual booting Linux and Windows for any reason. You have to copy some of the files from other file systems.

Ext2Fsd: Features At A Glance

Features Ext2Fsd supports: ext2/ext3 volume reading & writing

ext3 journal replay when mounting

various codepage: utf8, cp936, cp950 …

mountpoint automatical assignment

large inode size: 128, 256, …

large file size bigger than 4G

CIFS sharing over network

htree directory indexing

ext4 extent support

fast fsck (uninit_bg) and group block checksum support

up to 4G*blocksize volume: 16TB for 4K block

64k block-size, support compatible to Linux ext4 and e2fsprogs

OS: 2k, xp, vista, server 2003/2008, win7 Supported Ext3/4 features : flexible inode size: > 128 bytes, up to block size

dir_index: htree directory index

filetype: extra file mode in dentry

large_file: > 4G files supported

sparse_super: super block backup in group descriptor

uninit_bg: fast fsck and group checksum

flex_bg: first metadata group

extent: reading, writing, deleting, everything

journal: only support replay for internal journal Unsupported Ext3/4 features: journal: log-based operations, external journal

EA (extended attributes), ACL support

64-bit block number Features Ext2Fsd doesn’t support: fully ext3 journal support

LVM and Linux raid (md)

NT4 is no longer supported.

How To Mount Linux Partitions In Windows Using Ext2Fsd

To mount Linux partitions in Windows, first of all, download Ext2Fsd in your Windows.

Download the latest version of Ext2Fsd from the list. The current latest version is 0.62. Follow the simple installation wizard and install Ext2Fsd and launch it from the start menu. I’m using Windows 8.1 and this is working perfectly fine on this Windows. When you launch you get the following screen.

As you can see all of my Linux partitions are available here with all the basic information like Type, File System, Total size, Used size and codepage, etc. You can also see the Linux swap partitions, don’t mount them because can only be some system files. To mount EXT4 files simply double-click the partition.