Hi.
My computer is running a Dual Boot of Debian kernel 2.6.9 and Windows XP SP1.
I was stucked today, having no possible way to transfer a file from linux to XP.

1 - The first problem is: Both of my windows partitions are in NTFS and linux can't write on them.

So i went on google and searched for a solution.
All i found was that writing on NTFS partitions with linux was still experimental and that the best way to transfer files from your Linux, reboot and use it under Windows was to have a Fat32 (vfat) partition.
There was also a program for mounting ntfs drives called captive but everyone seems to say it is experimental as well and that it doesn't work well.
Finally i told myself. I'll let my C: drive for XP in NTFS and i'll convert my 200gb drive of data to Fat32 so i can swap stuff between my OS.

2 - The second problem is: My 200gb drive can't be converted back to FAT32 with windows because Microsofts, acting as a monopolistic company would act, doesn't give you this freedom.

Then i told myself, : I'll simply use Partition Magic 8.0 to do it.

3 - Third problem: The 200gb drive full of data is a Dynamic disk. So Partition Magic 8.0 won't let you convert or do anything with the drive because it simply doesn't support dynamic disks.

Then i tought about converting the drive back to Basic disks instead of dynamic disks.

4 - Fourth problem is that Windows won't let you turn a dynamic disk back to Basic disk without erasing the content of the disk, wich is unnacceptable due to the important information that i hold on the 200gb.

And i have no place to backup 200gb of stuff.

im stuck stuck stuck stuck.

What i would like to know is :

1 - Is Captive still an experimental buggy software or could i use it efficiently ?
2 - How could i simply convert my 200gb to fat32 without losing its content ?

Thanks for the help.

You are pretty much out of luck.

NTFS write in linux is very much expirimental, and I wouldn't advise it - I have lost a lot of data that way.

Secondly, it is impossible to convert NTFS back to FAT, period. There is no way around this.

Sorry dude

Are you certain that it is impossible to convert a ntfs partition back to fat32?
Because Partition Magic tells me it CAN do it on my C: drive since this drive is in basic disk and not dynamic disk.
I know it would scrap my windows installation and thats why im not doing it.

you can perhaps switch on stable ntfs writing with captive like i did on my notebook, but its quite not the fastest way, but it works...

Is it possible to make a smallish vfat partition just to transfer files? So you would write the file to the vfat partition in Linux, then boot Windows, and copy/move the file to your 200G data partition.

A bit of a kludge, I admit, but if you have some spare space, it should work.

thx for the answers guys, i'll try captive tonight.
i didn't know that captive could be set to stable.
im O.K. with slow. last night, i only had a link to a file on the net to transfer to winXP and i had to write it on a paper. how pathetic.

Padma, it is not possible to get a fat32 partition on my 120gb
the only place where it would help to set a fat32 partition is on the 200gb and its dynamic.
damn, i so much hate dynamic disks and ntfs . gggggrrrrrrr .

i'll get back on this.
thx again

dynamik is not good, even with captive that should be a problem...

...but if you want to transfer something to win, you can also use the total commander and the ext3 file system plugin.
total commander is shareware and the filesystem plaugin ist open source!

you can access ext2 - read and write, ext3 & reiser only readable...

thats now a bunch of ways i think...