I'm using Windows 7, and I wasn't able to run FS-driver because the program gave me an error about compatibility. I emailed the author and he told me (within a few hours) that people should run the program in compatibility mode for Windows Vista. Sounds like this would be a good way.

I had already done it another way by the time he'd emailed me. What I did was use ext2-fsd, and seems to have worked fine. The only problem I had was that I got the dreaded BSoD on the first reboot -- but only once. Rebooted a few more times with no blue screen.

Confirm ext2-fsd to work somewhat with Win7.

I have a disk from Ubuntu 8.10. I figured I would try the program mentioned by Jakob. It didn't work at all. It could not read the partition table. However the FS-Driver program did read the disk.
Just thought I'd let you know.
Rick

It'sw asking me to format my Linux drive in Vista in order for me to see it / acess it.How can I overcome this problem n see the drives correctly in Windows Vista ?

I've installed this without any compatability mode set, on my Vista 64 Ultimate box...I'm copying G's of data across my network, so I cannot reboot just yet. I'll check back in later once I can verify it is now working. I'm still waiting, however, to see if it will allow access to the volume groups, or if it will only access the boot partition, which was the case when I installed this on XP a couple of years back. As far as corruption, you might try the readonly mode as you really "shouldn't" allow windows to write to your linux partitions as a security matter anyway. Remember that...usually..the hacks into your system will give a remote user the same access as the person logged in, possibly giving them access to your shadow file, etc, and exposing your "secure" linux to windows faults. Just a recco.

Guy

I have a Macbook, triple boot Ubuntu, Vista & Mac OS Leopard.

I downloaded and installed fs-driver and on clicking on Ubuntu and Mac drives, Vist wants to format them! Should I check the read only button on the Wizard?

Thanks

By now most linux-distros use 256 bit inode-numbers, which ext2ifs does not deal with. There is another driver that works in precisely the same way, which _does_ understand 256 bit inode numbers: ext2fsd. Check it out on www.ext2fsd.com. Installation etc are precisely the same as for ext2ifs. Some of the reported problems in the comments may actually be due precisely to this problem with the inode numbers. So I suggest those people to give ext2fsd a try. Sofar it works flawlessly for me

The thing keeps telling me that I should format the drive. Should I do that or not?

Solved the annoying "parameter is incorrect" error opening executables in Vista on the NTFS drive.

It's because of UAC (user access control.. i.e. the annoying popup permission boxes). Install TweakUAC - http://www.tweak-uac.com/home/ - and disable it completely (beware lack of security once you've done this).

Reboot and sorted :)

My experience with reading/writing ext3 partitions from Windows (XP) was a bit hair-raising at times. In general, it wasn't too bad, but still unnerved me enough to not try it again.

Using both the 1.10 series and 1.11 release of Ext2ifs caused minor errors and inconsistencies on my Linux partitions, even if I hadn't written any data to them. The odd file would copy over corrupt (or not be there when viewing the partition from Linux), and during the boot process Fsck would usually pop up and say there were errors on the disk. To the best of my knowledge, I never actually lost any data that Linux had written to the partitions... but I know other people that have. It was all just too unreliable for me to risk using.

Trying Ext2fsd (0.37-0.42 I think), I didn't have so many errors or problems, but the interface and drive-letter allocation wasn't as convenient, and after my experiences with a post-1.0 program, I was suspicious of one that was still in pre-1.0 status. The developer also started supporting ext2/3 symbolic links, which meant that certain windows programs such as virus scanners would think that they were real files/directories and go into an infinite loop as they followed the links 'round and 'round... Yes, it's technically the 'correct' thing to do but it's not very convenient when the best way to find viruses/rootkits on a system is to scan it from another (known-clean) one.

The other problem I had from giving Windows write access to Linux partitions, is that it automatically created a recycle-bin folder on each one, which of course Linux doesn't use, and running Windows Update or installing some new programs would often create annoying temporary directories with long and cryptic names in the root of the Linux disks. I know these are faults with Windows itself, and can probably be fixed, but it's still annoying.

So now, I just use Explore2FS. It's a bit clunky and annoying at times, and it only allows you to read Linux data, but I'd rather have a little inconvenience when copying Linux data, than risk losing it all together. Unfortunately, I think support for it is drying up.

As for NTFS-3G in Linux... well, it hasn't destroyed my Windows partitions yet, but I don't want to risk it and therefore try to avoid actually writing to them at all cost, and am considering passing the 'ro' option to the line in fstab to make sure.

I'd say if you need to be able to write to one partition from the other OS, I'd much rather use NTFS-3G from Linux than Ext2IFS/Ext2FSD from Windows. That's rather ironic, when you consider which is the free and open format, and which one's the reverse-engineered, proprietary one!

I'm having kind of the same problem, I have full access to my ext2 drive, but when I try to launch an .exe file from the ext2 partition if show an error "Wrong Parameter"

I went to see if v1.10c couold work but it doesn't on Vista x64 :s

Does anyone have an idea?

Thanks.

Well, the 1.11 doesn't work in Vista, the older one works (1.10c).

Download it here:
http://www.fs-driver.org/extendeddl.html

I'm not risking to give read/write access on ext3 from vista. If is there a program that I can use it only when I need it, and has support for journalling and htree..

When I try to open the drive I get "Drive:/ is not accessible The parameter is incorrect." I'm using Vista home premium SP1.

I use Vista and I didn't have to change the compatibility mode, or reboot. And it worked fine.

ok, i got it to install everything and the drive letter shows in vista. however, when i double click the drive, windows asks me to format it. any ideas how i can make it work without formatting and erasing all data?

Logical volumes does not work - I found out after digging around a little bit that this program does not support Logical volumes (even though the underlying file system is ext2fs). :( I was excited for a little bit but now I have to go back to rebooting to access linux files.

Everything works fine except that I can assign drive letter only to the boot partition on my linux. I am not able to assign a drive letter to the actual linux "filesystem" partition. When I run "IFS Drives", the pop-down menu for drive letter is available only for the boot partition. Anybody else had this issue?

I used it and it worked out very fine in very first time there is no need of doing Data Execution Prevention (DEP) in Vista, just assign drive letters and enjoy :)
i used release date:01-28-2008
Gr8

It adds a minute to shutdown time.
I tried this just enough to see that it works under Vista...
It seams to work as far as I can tell, except for
in the sessions where this is used, a minute or so is added to the Vista shutdown time.
(where nothing seams to be happening)
I do have DEP off for the most part.

It just BSOD's my system out using this method.

Thank you so much. I love that you found how to work this on Vista.

Thank you!
This page was very helpful to me!
At the moment no problems at all with corrupted data. :)

WARNING!!!

This driver works in Vista BUT later I had terrible problems with corrupt data in my linux partition.

SYMPTOMS
1. When linux boots, it complains that there are file system errors on the EXT3 partition.
2. Some applications does not run, some files (JPGs) are shown strange.
3. The GUI does not start if your home directory is corrput.
4. Linux does not boot at all if the root directory is corrput.

I recommend - DO NOT use it.

I'm stuck early in the game:

"Once you have on your Vista disk, right click on it and select compatibility for XP Service Pack 2 as shown on this picture."

Click on WHAT? I'm trying to look for some kind of thing to interact with that the install left on my system, but I'm getting nothing like what the images show. Can someone point out what I'm overlooking? Thanks.

It does not work because of the STUPID Data Execution Prevention (DEP) in Vista locking the rundll32.exe. So this is what you need to do:-

1. Go to Computer -> right click -> select Properties -> select Advanced System Settings -> click Continue -> select Advanced tab -> select Settings tab under Performance -> select Data Execution Prevention tab -> select Turn on DEP for all programs and services except those I select: -> Add - rundll32.exe file in System32 folder... You need to restart your computer after this.

2. After restart... go to Control Panel..., press SHIFT then right click on the IFS Drives icon and select Run as... it will take sometime for Vista to process this... then select continue and Wa Laa! you are in the IFS menu!

Conclusion... VISTA SUCKS!!! Long live UBUNTU!

Please do it at your own risk...

No workie. You can only install the driver in XP compatability mode, then Data Execution Prevention prevents it from working.