Hi,

I just installed RedHat 9 on a system that already had Windows XP Pro. Before Linux installation I had two partitions, aout 40GB for C drive and about 80GB for D drive where I kept all my music, movies, downloads, etc. [no installed programs] Both drives have NTFS file system on them. After I installed RedHat, I took out about 15GB out of C drive divided them into three partitions: swap, home [10GB], and root[5GB]. Now, the problems is that NTFS driver for Linux can only read from the drive without damaging the data. If I download something in Linux and want to store it on D I have to use ext3 reading software in Windows XP to do so. Question: what file system is FULLY supported by Linux and Windows XP, if any? And if it does exist can I convert my D drive to that system without formatting?

Please help me out, thanks.

FAT32

and yes.
linux calls it vfat.

How stable is Linux' support of FAT32?

I would use ntfs as the main file system for windows. However you could make an extra fat32 partition to put your files in that you want to share between windows and linux. A lot of people install xp on a small ~5 gig ntfs partion and then make a larger fat32 partition and then make their linux partions. Since windows can use the fat32 partion normally you can move stuff over to it for windows to use. Then you can access everything on it from linux and you can save stuff to it from linux to be used with xp. I haven't done this yet, but I plan on doing it soon.

http://www.jankratochvil.net/project/captive/

Try it.

um guys in kernel 2.6.x NTFS is supported read and write modes both work.


This enables the partial, but safe, write support in the NTFS driver.

The only supported operation is overwriting existing files, without
changing the file length. No file or directory creation, deletion or
renaming is possible. Note only non-resident files can be written to
so you may find that some very small files (<500 bytes or so) cannot
be written to.

While we cannot guarantee that it will not damage any data, we have
so far not received a single report where the driver would have
damaged someones data so we assume it is perfectly safe to use.

Note: While write support is safe in this version (a rewrite from
scratch of the NTFS support), it should be noted that the old NTFS
write support, included in Linux 2.5.10 and before (since 1997),
is not safe.

This is currently useful with TopologiLinux. TopologiLinux is run
on top of any DOS/Microsoft Windows system without partitioning your
hard disk. Unlike other Linux distributions TopologiLinux does not
need its own partition. For more information see
<http://topologi-linux.sourceforge.net/>

It is perfectly safe to say N here.

ProtoformX, I don't doubt that what you've said is correct as I've seen it elsewhere, but it's a real stretch to say that NTFS write mode is supported when it only works in such a limited way.

Just imagine the derision from the Linux community if MS claimed it supported writing to, say, an ext3 partition in the same limited way.

My last post was from the kernel help .. so I think its pretty safe to say it's okey.

I think it's pretty far-fetched to say that NTFS write mode is supported. You can only modify existing files and you can't change the size of the file while doing so. In most cases, this is useless. If the OP really wants to use NTFS, use the driver that melinda_sayang suggested. Otherwise, stick with FAT32.

One advantage of NTFS (over FAT32) is that it supports files which are larger than 4GB - for example, a ripped DVD image.

yeah but still, ntfs support in linux sucks, and it will probably suck for ever...

that dedicated "shared fat32 drive" idea that Crazy Travis posted sounds really good...

i'd go for doing something like that if i used windows on my computer...