[How to] Access Linux Files In Windows When Dual Booting Linux, Ubuntu, Linux Mint And Windows 10 / 8.1

If you are dual booting 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.

---

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 at all or you use VirtualMachines.

Ext2Fsd

Ext2Fsd is a tool in Windows that can easily mount Linux partitions and you can access each files from Linux partitions. This tool is nice and save so much time when you're dual booting Linux and Windows for any reasons. 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 Ext2Fsd

Download the latest version of Ext2Fsd from the list. Current latest version is 0.62.

Follow the simple installation wizard and install Ext2Fsd and launch it from 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.

Now check 'Mount volume in readonly mode' and also check 'Automatically mount via Ext2Mgr'. Now click apply. You've done! Now open file manager and see the Linux partition has been mounted in Windows. In the same way you can also mount other Linux partitions. 

This single application helps alot. It saves precious time and we don't have to boot our system in other OSes for some important files. Let us know if you're using any similar apps for using other Linux partitions. Share them with us below. Also tell us that how frequently you need to use Linux files when you're using Windows.

 

Please Take Poll - How Often You Need To Access Linux Files When Using Windows ?