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Old 12-23-2009, 07:09 AM   #1
salimshahzad
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best partition on linux/windows


dear sirs

which is the best partition that work with windows and linux same time. like vfat fat32 or fatex etc advise.

regards
salim
 
Old 12-23-2009, 08:15 AM   #2
ongte
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If your asking if you can use 1 filesystem to install both Linux and Windows, then No. That does not exist. Modern Linux distros use ext3 or ext4 while Windows XP onward usually uses NTFS.

Since modern distros can now read & write to NTFS, this not a big issue anymore. If you want a shared partition that can be accessed from both Windows and Linux, then the best choice is still FAT32.(called vfat in Linux)

Beware though as FAT32 is not fault tolerant & has file size limitations.
 
Old 12-23-2009, 10:18 AM   #3
kellemes
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Quote:
Originally Posted by salimshahzad View Post
dear sirs

which is the best partition that work with windows and linux same time. like vfat fat32 or fatex etc advise.

regards
salim
Assuming you mean sharing a partition for storage..
Personally always using ext3, no issues at all.
Using this driver to access it from Windows, there are other methods though..
 
Old 12-23-2009, 10:48 AM   #4
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It is possible to have Linux installed on the same filesystem as Windows. ZipSlack is an excellent example of this - as it used the UMSDOS filesystem which allowed it to coexist on the same partition as Windows. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZipSlack

However, UMSDOS is an old technology that is not being supported in the newer kernels. The best filesystem depends on how you plan on using it and which OS you plan on spending most of your time in. Both ongte and kellemes bring up good topics.

Last edited by lukav; 12-23-2009 at 03:50 PM. Reason: make it more clear that UMSDOS is old!
 
Old 12-24-2009, 01:26 AM   #5
salimshahzad
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Dear gurus

great views opnion comes welcome

but sir this is usb hard drive that i carry data sometime on windows and sometime on linux. the main problem it has some problem. from windows i can format as ntfs using windows xp etc. from linux i can use any linux partition format like ext2,ext3.

i try all above mention tools it provide read only.

using windows, as linux partition i can copy from usb drive to harddisk. but vice versa not possible due to no write access.

so i was looking what possible best option i should use for both. the next fat32 does not support also 120 gb usb hard drive for formatting.

gparted help to partition and it never identify what is wrong with your harddisk and it never fixed for u

regards
salim
 
Old 12-24-2009, 09:28 AM   #6
lukav
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Are you using the external hard drive to hold data and/or the OS?

If you are using it to only hold data, format it using NTFS. Then check out NTFS-3G for Linux.

If you are running the OS from the external hard drive, my recommendation is to create two partitions on the external hard drive.
 
Old 12-24-2009, 09:40 AM   #7
AwesomeMachine
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I think FAT32 has a size limitation for the file system, like 64GB. I would try NTFS, but mount the drive like this:

su
password:
mount rw,user /dev/sda1 /mnt/ntfs -t ntfs

I think the default for ntfs is ro, not rw.
 
Old 12-24-2009, 09:01 PM   #8
ongte
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I have a 250GB Drive formated in FAT32, the only limitation is an individual file cannot be larger than 2GB. Windows refused to format FAT32 on any disk larger than 40GB. This is only a limit imposed by the Windows Disk Management. You can use fdisk/parted/gparted in Linux to create and format FAT32 partitions of any size up to 2TB.

The kernel ntfs driver is read-only. That said, any distro released in the last 2 years will include ntfs-3g, which enables NTFS read/write. So it should not be a problem for you to format the disk as NTFS in windows & use it seamlessly in Linux. (Assuming you are running a modern up-to-date distro)
 
Old 12-24-2009, 09:08 PM   #9
smeezekitty
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Quote:
The kernel ntfs driver is read-only
WTF? the kernel driver since 2.6 has been r/w .
 
Old 12-24-2009, 09:14 PM   #10
ongte
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Quote:
Originally Posted by smeezekitty View Post
WTF? the kernel driver since 2.6 has been r/w .
Dude. It's not. All read/write support is done through fuse with ntfs-3g.
 
  


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