Its sometimes essential to have NTFS and ext2 write support.
You doods and the ext2+ apps shouldnt care about whats exactly, they'd only recognize by some entry or the recovery journal.
ext3 is EXACTLY ext2, just with the additional journal that aint needed outside of unix, yet.

So i was using ext2fsd, running its setup on every boot to get me my r/o partitions.

I found that nice resource site: http://ext2fsd.sourceforge.net/resources/resources.htm
which gave me ext2fsnt thats supposed to have write support ( http://ext2fsd.sourceforge.net/resources/resources.htm )

I've tried but it didnt do much, it was copying an ext2.sys and stuff. After i ran the ext2fsd setup, it mounted my partitions r/w!
i probably will still have windoz-char-finding problems, for like the ipod.. it always overwrites F:, or at least tries to.. my linux partition wins in every case.

For those who wanna use my ext2fsd version, and download ext2fsnt.rar, both are on xmb.ath.cx

http://xmb.ath.cx/ext2fsd-0.21.rar
http://xmb.ath.cx/ext2fsnt.rar

And have read/write ext2/3 partitions! have fun!

woohoo space to copy more mp3s

Hmm only every 10th directory has any content displayed by windoz.. now explorer is hung to 'my computer', rest work.

and everything accessing the fs, like winamp, but mp3's worked before, its still playing but i think its from another windoz share, winamp wont show up.

My conclusion to trying ext2fsd (v0.21) and ext2fsnt, both have kindof a setup script. if i run ext2fsnt first, then fsd, i get my mountes read-write, but much content in dirs inside are missing, tho you can make new directories and write to them w/o damage, for me at least.
If i run fsd first, i get the same read-only. newer fsd versions may do the job better, or other software.
Good day.

This is the best solution only if you have no need to share files over 4GB.

So let me make sure this is straight...

it is OK to Write to an ext3 partition that is mounted as ext2 on windows?

i know theres no journaling but it wont f@#$ the partition?

read the ext2fsd project page for this kind of info and the caveats of writing ext2/3 with windows using this driver.

Much of the performance will depend on how the windows and the linux systems are set up. However, word is that writing to ext from windows is not a problem.

i read the ext2fsd page before i got here, but only it says in general, its dangerous, its not supported, etc... but what i want to make clear is if, and not just with this driver, if i do write an ext3 mounted as ext2, and if the write was successful, then will i or have i caused damage to the ext3 partition, immediately or the next time its mounted as ext3?

If the designers cannot give you that assurance, nobody can.

You can only try it and see.
For that matter, you could create a small vfat partition and use that with the windows fat32 driver... if you were worried.

but i mean, in principle, can it be done.
you must be misunderstanding my question.
If everything does go as it should, does writing a ext2 mounted ext3 partition damage it?

for instance, the next time that partition is mounted as ext3 will the journal be wrong?, could the files written as ext2 be missing?,even if the journal is wrong does it matter?

In principle anything can be done.
http://linux.org.mt/article/filesystems
...for the lowdown on different file systems and what's so special about them.

Ignoring the windows issue for a bit - imagen you have an older linux without ext3 support and for some reason you must manipulate a disk formatted with ext3 ... which will later be used in a machine which does have ext3 support.

ext3 is backwards compatable with ext2 - and can be mounted as ext2 on the old system. You can read and write files et al. Presumably the journal is not updated. If the system shuts down uncleanly - it will perform an ext2 fschk to attemt to correct any damage as normal.

Transfer to the ext3-enabled system ... and the files will all be there. The changes will not be in the journal... but you can touch all the files to get them written to the journal (I havn't done this so I'm extrapolating from the descriptions ... someone correct me if I get this wrong.) ... if your system should shut down uncleanly before you do this, then you will lose all the changes made from the last journal update when you reboot.

Remember, the journal is only needed when the system reboots after an unclean shutdown (your little brother threw the circuit breaker while you were playing the 23rd level on Iotot 5:"Revenge of the Fnords" ...)

That's true, but sometimes you need it, ive been trying to get my 5 younger brothers and sisters to use linux, a ver friendly distro like ubuntu, but until now i failed. So they need the pc to do stuff, an i only use linux, specially because most tools i use are a lot better in linux, for example latex (by the way, there is finally a nice LaTeX editor in gtk "winefish" is very nice now), and ive downloaded some files that i need to use on the wondows partition, so i need to access my linux one, you see, i dont want this, but i cant help it.

Welcome to LQ.
This thread is almost half a decade old.
I know we prefer you to reply to existing threads but it is better to reply to newer posts - prefereabsy ones which have no existing replies.

You need something like Paragon ExtFs for Windows - really easy way to read/write on any extfs partition from any windows os

Please notice the original Thread and the last post dates before posting. Original thread date is 2005 while the last before yours is 2009.

Resurrection of a necro post is something LQ doesn't want.

BTW, there are better methods to read EXT2/3/4 on a Microsoft windows system then the referenced link you provided.