Shared Linux/Windows partition WITHOUT FAT32
 

Hello,

I'm a dual boot user of Windows and Linux. And yes, I have a legitimate reason for needing both :)

My problem is that I have a 200GB partition that I want to use to share data between Thunderbird and other apps, but don't want to use FAT32.

Not only do I not want to do it (e.g. large files), but both format i: /FS:FAT32 and mkfs.vfat /dev/sda4 both complain about the parition being too big. Yes, it should theoretically go to 2TB, but neither Windows, nor FC6 want to know about it. Which is quit funny because I have previously formatted a 250GB drive as FAT32.

Therefore, I **really** need another file system to share data between the partitions. Even if just for large file support.

I have used an EXT2 driver in Windows for mounting USB disks formatted as EXT2/EXT3, but I have had no luck with the driver for "internal" partitions.

Am I doing something stupid? Is there better things available? Is there a magic ReiserFS/XFS/JFS/<something> file system driver that will do the trick? Or a simple trick to compromise on FAT32 for the moment.

I have seen a reference to a Windows driver for ReiserFS, but nothing really solid.

Thanks in advance
Damien.

Given the dual boot scheme, perhaps you could consider the most obvious solution, NTFS. Personally I haven't encountered a single problem with the read-write-NTFS when running 2.6-kernel series.

I don't dual-boot but I've heard from many people that the ntfs-3g driver is very good and shouldn't give you any dramas. That being said though, if this is life-or-death data you're talking about then you probably need to keep looking passed NTFS.