Why Cant I see Linux partitioned Hard Drives in Windows?

[Jayz]

Hi all. I recently installed Linux OS on an external Hard Drive, while keeping Windows XP professional on my internal, which gives me the option to boot from either OS. However, a slight inconvenience that I am experiencing now is that I am unable to access my external Hard Drive from Windows XP. I am able to "see" it from Windows Disk Management, however it appears as "unknown" and I'm unable to do anything with it.

Now I THINK that this is because Windows partitioned Hard Drives are NTFS (or fat32 for older systems), whereas Linux partitions my Hard Drive in an ext3 file format, which may be unrecogniseable by Windows. However, I'm not a technician or anything so hopefully someone here will be able to confirm my suspicion or provide me with another explanation (and hopefully a solution). Thanks all :D

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

Welcome to the Windows Forum.

You are right, Linux uses a file system that is unknown to Windows, and you will therefore be unable to see or do anything on that partition. I don't know if Linux can operate on a Windows file system.

[Scarecrow Man]

Linux can read/write to NTFS partitions - http://www.ntfs-3g.org/

Windows can read/write to Ext2fs partitions - http://www.fs-driver.org/ (And Ext3fs partitions with some tweaking)

For other partition types such as ReiserFS try a google search.

[Seshomaru Samma]

for reiserfs try this (read-only i'm afraid)

[P.Rudra]

Samma's information is very helpful. I was also living with the same limitations: Windows ntfs partition (which I occasionally use) and openSUSE 10.3 with reiserfs (which is my main OS).

For less ambitious aim, just to view the hard disk partitioning from windows (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309000)

Start ---> run ---> compmgmt.msc ---> OK ---> Disk Management will show hard disk partitioning and occupancy,

though reiserfs is referred to as 'Unknown Partitioning'.