Ext4 or Extended Files System version 4 is the default file system for Linux. While Linux supports NTFS, But Windows does not natively support ext4, ext3, and ext3 file system format. It cannot access ext4 partition without the help of the additional application. If you are dual booting Windows 10 and any Linux distribution, and looking for access data in ext4 partition in Windows 10. Here this post How to Access Linux Files In Windows When Dual Booting Linux, Ubuntu, Linux Mint And Windows 10 / 8.1/7.
Ext2Fsd
Ext2Fsd is a tool in Windows that can easily mount Linux partitions and you can access each file from Linux partitions. This tool is nice and save so much time when you’re dual booting Linux and Windows for any reasons. You have to copy some of the files from other file systems.
Ext2Fsd Features
- ext2/ext3 volume reading & writing
- ext3 journal replay when mounting
- various codepage: utf8, cp936, cp950 …
- mountpoint automatical assignment
- large inode size: 128, 256, …
- large file size bigger than 4G
- CIFS sharing over network
- htree directory indexing
- ext4 extent support
- fast fsck (uninit_bg) and group block checksum support
- up to 4G*blocksize volume: 16TB for 4K block
- 64k block-size, support compatible to Linux ext4 and e2fsprogs
- OS: 2k, xp, vista, server 2003/2008, win7
Supported Ext3/4 features :
- flexible inode size: > 128 bytes, up to block size
- dir_index: htree directory index
- filetype: extra file mode in dentry
- large_file: > 4G files supported
- sparse_super: super block backup in group descriptor
- uninit_bg: fast fsck and group checksum
- flex_bg: first metadata group
- extent: reading, writing, deleting, everything
- journal: only support replay for internal journal
Unsupported Ext3/4 features:
- journal: log-based operations, external journal
- EA (extended attributes), ACL support
- 64-bit block number
Features Ext2Fsd doesn’t support:
- fully ext3 journal support
- LVM and Linux raid (md)
- NT4 is no longer supported.
open Linux Partitions In Windows Using Ext2Fsd
- First of all Download The latest version of Ext2Fsd 0.69 from the official site here.
- Double click on Ext2Fsd-version.exe to execute Ext2Fsd installer
- follow the setup wizard pages to install and configure Ext2Fsd.
- Now open Ext2Fsd, you will see all of Linux partitions with all the basic information like, Type, File System, Total size, Used size and codepage etc.
Ext2Read
Ext2read is another file explorer for Linux File system formats ( Ext2, Ext3, LVM2, Ext4). That allows to view, copy files and folders from Ext4 into Windows 10 partitions. Since it supports recursive copy of files and folders, it makes it ideal when you want to copy a large number of files. It also supports LRU based block cache for faster concurrent access.
DiskInternals Linux Reader
DiskInternals Linux Reader is another free software which installs drivers that allows you to read Ext4 partitions from the File Explorer of Windows. It only supports reading, i.e., view and copy files and folders. When on Root, i.e., top folder, it will show you some stats like count of different types of data.
Let us know if any of these tools helped you read and copy files from ext4 to a Windows drive.