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I haven't used Windows on my own machine for several years, and thus have not had the need to access ext2/3/4-formatted partitions with Windows. I had used to use ext2fsd, which, with some grumbling and inconvenience, would let me mount these volumes. But - it wasn't support to the level of the "natively" supported NTFS and FAT32 filesystems.

Has the situation improved? Are Windows 10 machines able to "just" mount ext2/3/4 partitions these days, with no special effort (other than perhaps installing a 3-rd party driver)? Is there a Microsoft driver, or another one that's robust?

Related question from 2013: How to read ext4 partitions on Windows?

einpoklum
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4 Answers4

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AFAIK, the only access to extn partitions is with third-party tools, such as free DiskGenius, which provides full read access, and claims write access, as well.

ext4 partition in DiskGenius

Here, you can see and ext4 partition mounted in DiskGenius' Explorer. However, I still view writing to a partition mounted in such a tool with some trepidation, since there is no restriction on making changes in vital locations.

DrMoishe Pippik
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Third party drivers exist. I've lost a lot of data testing the latest version (2.2, released 2010 !!) of ext2read in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. Proceed with caution, and make backups often, then verify them.

K7AAY
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The state of ext2/3/4 support in Windows as of 2020 is still not great.

The Ext2Fsd Project you linked to is unfortunately still one of the best options, although it looks to me somewhat abandoned.

There are other options, none of them new, but they are read-only. I would in any case only read EXTn disks on Windows, it wouldn't be a good idea to update. See DiskInternals Linux Reader.

The best and safest solution would be to use on Windows a Linux virtual machine for accessing the raw disk/partition.

harrymc
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"Windows 10 now allows you to mount physical disks formatted using the Linux ext4 filesystem in the Windows Subsystem for Linux 2"

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/windows-10-now-lets-you-mount-linux-ext4-filesystems-in-wsl-2/

Jordan Morris
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