On my Windows side, via Ext2fsd as recommended by Pendrivelinux, I'm trying to access my Linux Mint 9 USB flash drive's new folders of documents and files I've created, which I assume are in persistence, but my flash's folder only reveals casper and isolinux and preseed and other basic Mint folders. What am I doing wrong?

Also, I am psyched up to use GParted on the flash drive to split its one partition into two which I'll format into FAT 32 so that both PC and Linux can read and write any files in there as recommended by some, but can I do this on a drive that already has files on it or do I have to find a way to back up everything and do a clean install all over again? I'm a non-techie and have gotten this far and gutsy thanks to user help from you all!

Jim in NYC

Might be a good idea if you posted a link to the site where you obtained instructions (Pendrivelinux?) or explain in a little more detail what you did. Generally, this method just puts a Live CD on your flash drive which is apparently what you have and why you see the folders/files you do. If you used a method to make the flash persistent, what did you do and as to what you are doing wrong, we would need to know what you "did" to try to figure that out.

You are not doing anything wrong. Basically it is how a live CD/USB OS works. The casper-rw file contains your persistent data i.e settings and all of those documents and files you have created and is mounted as loop file so that it appears to be part of the file system.

How large is your flash drive?

FYI with a FAT 32 filesystem then size of the casper-rw file and all of your saved data is limited to 4G. You can create a larger casper-rw if desired. You can resize your existing partition but you should run gparted from a Live CD vs the USB flash drive.