Hello again,

I will save alot of explanation if I start by saying that this laptop I'm using will not allow me to dual boot.
So as an alternative, I use VMWare's player and a virtual machine with Ubuntu 6.06 LTS on it. The Virtual Machine works fine. I want to be able to access the virtual drive from my host (WinXP).
I started by using VMWare's Virtual DiskMount Utility. It will make the proper link so that I can access the virtual drive from windows, but windows does not reconise the file system and asks me to format it.

OK, fine...

Then I tryied to mount the same virtual drive with VDK (a similar tool as VMWare's DiskMount Utility with advanced options). I came out with the same result. Even though VDK has it's own driver, the driver does not seem to load the EXT2/3 file system properly.

So as a rough rigging I loaded the driver from a program called ext2ifs (which IS NOT for loading Virtual Drives but ACTUAL partitions) then mounted the virtual drive with VMWare DiskMount, and I can get in. BUT I cannot write to the virtual drive. Only READ.
Using the same drive from ext2ifs and mounting with VDK in read/write mode I still can only READ from the Virtual drive.

I am SURE that it's the driver...

How can I get Windows XP to READ & WRITE to a Virtual Drive with an EXT2/3 file system??? OR where can I get a better driver that will allow READ & WRITE on an EXT2/3 file system Virtual Drive???

DRIVERS FOR EXT2/3 PARTITIONS DO NOT WORK!!! THE DRIVER HAS TO BE CONFIG'D FOR A VIRTUAL DRIVE!!!

MOUNTING IS NOT THE ISSUE!!! I KNOW HOW TO MOUNT IT!!!

Looking for an open source or freeware solution as this is for work I am doing for a portfolio.

*** sorry for all the caps, but everywhere I've searched those things are all I came up with...

Have you tried the vmware.com forums? They might be more helpful with your situation since a VMWare product is involved.

The only suggestion I have is to configure Samba on the Linux Guest. Windows will then be able to see the shared folder and read/write to it. But leave my suggestion for last because I get the feeling that there could be a better solution at vmware.com's forums.

VMWare Desktop Products Forum

I did check there. All I kept finding were people using NTFS or FAT virtual drives.

I DID FIND A WAY AROUND!!!

I enabled JUST ONE folder in WinXP for complete filesharing. Then in the Virtual Machine running Ubuntu 6.06LTS I went into networks, found my PC in the workgroup, and downloaded the file I wanted anyways... This should work MUCH better for me anyways...

Thanks though guys!