FSDEXT2: Second extended file system for Windows 95
Fsdext2 is a port of the second extended file system (ext2fs) to
Windows 95; albeit a read-only version.
Using FSDEXT2 you can transparently mount your Linux ext2fs partitions
on Windows 95.
- Latest stable version is 0.16, see
the readme, historyand
the faq first.
- Optionally, you could try version 0.17,
which has some new features, including an unmount option. However,
it does not handle removable media (floppies, cd-roms, zip drives etc)
correctly. If you insert such a new media while fsdext2 is active, then
you won't be able to use that new media after a new reboot. Nothing bad
happened, it just won't get recognised by Win95.
- version 0.17a and 0.17b caused me a lot of trouble, so I don't make them public anymore!
- Latest source is available as well (after unzip -d, read src.txt first).
- Please note that from version 0.17, FSDEXT2 is copyrighted and licensed under the terms of the
GNU General Public License.
Support
I no longer actively support fsdext2, simply because I've moved on to other
projects. Particularly, I've been working on an NT version of fsdext2;
although I'm not sure if that will ever see light. There are a few annoying
bugs I know of that I couldn't fix, including:
- Crash/blue screen when you start the machine. Fsdext2 is not using a very
sound mechanism to interface with block device drivers (hey, someone at
Microsoft should have written better documentation) I've tweaked it until
it worked on my machine, but it seems not to be working on all machine.
- Win98 extended partitions. Fsdext2 does not detect the newer style win98
extended partitions and therefor anything in them cannot be read.
Other links
Updated 19 August 2001: I'm very pleased to say that Gerald Schnabel has
updated
fsdext2 for
proper Windows98 support. Thanks Gerald, a job well done I'd say!
If you are interested in file systems, check out
Georgatos Photis'
home page.