Recently I have installed Linux Mint on my Laptop which is already running on Windows 7. Linux Mint is an awesome Desktop Operating System with better graphics but I faced one problem whenever I boot with my Win 7 OS, I was not able to view the partition on which Linux Mint was installed but I can see all windows partition in Linux. Why Such a thing is happening, I have no answer. Then I came across one article from HTG explaining the concept “Why Can Linux Read Windows Partitions but the Reverse Doesn’t Work?” From HTG article, I got to understand that there is very simple answer and that is Linux tries to gain popularity among users so they are coming Operating System which is compatible with Windows Native Partition Format such as NTFS and FAT (several flavours) file systems (for hard drives/magnetic systems) and CDFS and UDF for optical media, whereas Windows is already a leader and it doesn’t have a modify their OS to being compatible with other file systems that are being used by Linux.
How to Make Linux Partition Visible in Windows
From the above we got to understand why windows is not supporting Linux File system, but it is not feasible to every time log-off from Windows and log in Linux to access a particular partition. To access other file system you need to install additional drivers and software. In this article, I am going to tell two software’s ‘Ext2Read’ and ‘Ext2FSD’ software which are open source projects that supports Ext2 (Second Extended File System which is a file system for Linux Kernel) File System.
Using Ext2Read to View Linux Partition in Windows
1 Look the Partitions on my System in the image below, three partitions that are visible in Windows 7 Operating System are formatted as NTFS and one partition on which Linux Mint was installed is not visible and there is no information on File Format for that partition.
2 Download Ext2Read and extract the Zip file?
3 Open the Program as Administrator
4 When the software opens it will show the partition which is in Linux File System and you can easily access the files from that partition
Using Ext2FSD to Make Linus Partition Visible in Windows
1 Download and Install Ext2FSD
2 Open the program from Start Menu and you can see the partition with extension as EXT2/3 as you can see in the figure below. From that you can mount the partition and assign the letter of your choice and click on Apply
3 Now you can see the partition with the letter assigned in the previous step
If you know any other methods on How to Make Linux Partition Visible in Windows then do share with us by commenting below
Thank you for this review! Ext2fsd is a smart tool, but you missed some others grate tools. I’m currently using Paragon extfs for windows and I’m satisfied with this. I think I’ll keep using this. It reads my ext3/4 under windows xp-7-8! And I can write on ext partition as well. That’s why I like it. http://www.paragon-software.com/home/extfs-windows/ Ext2read can’t write on ext partition at all
sir my problem is that ,i’m first install window and then we isnstall linux ,due to installition of linux my window is crash,so now we want to install window 7 but they show not partion ,what is the step to show and install window plz?
Where exactly partitions are not showing, have you tried USB Bootable Windows 7 installation media..