Making External HD work on Linux and Windows

egingell · 04-07-2005, 09:21 PM

I'm trying to format an external hard drive (USB) so that I can plug it into a Windows machine or a Linux machine and have it work. I can get it to work on one or the other but, not both. Windows will only format in NTFS format (no option for any other) and anything I've tried so far with fdisk only works on Linux or tells me that the drive is too big (it's a 40 gig).

I have Windows XP and RedHat 9 kernel 2.4.20-31.9

egingell · 04-07-2005, 10:26 PM

Nevermind. I figured it out.

egingell · 04-08-2005, 02:13 AM

I got it to read NTFS but, I can't get it to write!!

PhilDEE · 04-08-2005, 04:23 AM

That's odd. Windows should be able to format it as FAT32. Linux so far isn't capable of writing to NTFS partions I think.

J.W. · 04-08-2005, 12:25 PM

Linux's ability to write to NTFS should be considered in the experimental stage. My understanding (which may be totally incorrect) is that you can edit NTFS files as long as the size of the file does not change, but if the size increases it could fail. (BTW if anyone actually knows the scoop here, please post)

If you need to share a partition between Linux and Windows, I'd recommend using FAT32, which is compatible with both. -- J.W.

egingell · 04-08-2005, 03:14 PM

I tried using "format X: /fs:fat32" and "format X: /fs:fat" (on Windows) both said that the drive was too big. I'd rather not partition the drive into 8 partitions. There seems to be programs out there that will make Windows able to read Linux ext2 and ext3, I think I might try that. Problem is, the Windows machines I want it to work on are at my school and I don't know if I'll have the permissions to install them.

michaelk · 04-08-2005, 08:50 PM

MS limited XP so that the maximum FAT32 partition it can create is 32GB.

Use linux fdisk to create the FAT32 partition.

egingell · 04-08-2005, 09:24 PM

I tried that and Windows wouldn't read it. It said it was RAW or Linux. I used "mkfs /dev/sda1" that seemed to work until I tried the disk on Windows. Then I tried "mkdosfs /dev/sda1" and it said the disk was too big.

the_clown · 04-08-2005, 09:25 PM

Captive NTFS will let you write to an NTFS partition under linux, however, there is basically a 1 in 6 chance that it will fail. The size of the file doesn't really effect it (as far as I can tell) it is just quite unstable. The best thing to do is use fdisk to change it over to fat32, or you could also use QT Parted for linux, if you prefer gui's.

egingell · 04-08-2005, 09:28 PM

I tried that to and it kept telling me that it couldn't find the LUFS module or something like that (I'm not home right now, or I would get the actual error message).

the_clown · 04-08-2005, 09:39 PM

I would not suggest using captive ntfs, it is still to unstable.

eeades · 04-09-2005, 08:01 AM

This may not be the prettiest solution, but you can always break the disk up into two 20Gig partitions, and then format them as fat32. Not pretty, but it get's the job done.

Eric

egingell · 04-10-2005, 07:20 AM

I'd rather not partition the HD. I found a program called "ext2fsd" that works beautifully on my XP box. I just hope I'll be able to install it on the boxes at my school. There's another one called explore2fs that I couldn't get to work on the XP box but, the boxes at my school are Win2k, maybe if I can't get the former to work, the latter will. I guess I'll find out on Tuesday.