Ext2Fsd

Last updated
Ext2Fsd
Original author(s) Matt Wu
Developer(s) Matt Wu
Initial releaseJanuary 26, 2002;23 years ago (2002-01-26)
Final release
0.69 [1] / November 2, 2017;7 years ago (2017-11-02)
Repository github.com/matt-wu/Ext3Fsd
Written in C [2]
Operating system Microsoft Windows
Available in English, Simplified Chinese
Type Installable File System
License GNU GPL v2
Website Archive of the original website [ usurped ]

Ext2Fsd (short for Ext2 File System Driver) is a free Installable File System driver written in C for the Microsoft Windows operating system family. It facilitates read and write access to the ext2, ext3 and ext4 file systems.

Contents

The driver can be installed on Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, [3] Windows 10, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2. [1] Support for Windows NT was dropped in version 0.30. [4]

The program Ext2Mgr can optionally be installed additionally to manage drive letters and such. Since the final release in 2017, no further updates have been made to Ext2Fsd. The official website succumbed to link rot in 2024.

Reception

The German computer magazine PC-WELT reported frequent program crashes in 2009. The program was not able to access ext3 partitions smoothly. This often led to a blue screen. Crashes of this type can lead to data loss, for example if there is not yet permanently stored data in the main memory. The program could only access ext2 partitions without errors. [5] In 2012, Computerwoche warned that access to ext3 partitions was "not harmless". Data loss may occur. [6]

Features

Feature matrix

ReadWriteJournaldir_index
ext2 Check-green.svgCheck-green.svg——
ext3 Check-green.svgCheck-green.svgLimitedCheck-green.svg
ext4 Check-green.svgCheck-green.svgLimitedCheck-green.svg

Supported Ext3/4 features

Source: [1]

Unsupported Ext3/4 features

Features to be implemented in future

Critical Bug

On November 2, 2017, a warning was issued with the release of version 0.69:

Don't use Ext2Fsd 0.68 or earlier versions with latest Ubuntu or Debian systems. Ext2Fsd 0.68 cannot process EXT4 with 64-BIT mode enabled, then it could corrupt your data. Very sorry for this disaster issue, I'm working on an improvement. [1]

While it is not very clear whether v0.69 corrects this deficiency, users have reported [7] that Windows 10 prompts them to format the ext4 drive even with the 0.69 version. The known solution is to convert the said ext4 drive to a 32 bit version. [8]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Ext2Fsd 0.69 released !". 2018-01-13. Archived from the original on 2019-01-25.
  2. ↑ http://www.ohloh.net/p/ext2fsd
  3. ↑ "Ext2Fsd: EXT3/EXT4 Support Now Works On Windows 8". 2014-06-19.
  4. ↑ "Ext2fsd". 2009-07-27.
  5. ↑ Donauer, Jürgen. "Ext2fsd - Absturzgefahr". PC-WELT. Retrieved 2018-08-25.
  6. ↑ "Ext2fsd: Zugriff auf Linux-Partition - Tuning für Microsoft Windows: Power-Tools für Windows 7 - computerwoche.de". www.computerwoche.de (in German). Retrieved 2018-08-25.
  7. ↑ "Ext2 File System Driver for Windows / Discussion / Ext2Fsd: You need to format the disk in drive before you can use it". sourceforge.net. Retrieved 2019-10-07.
  8. ↑ "Ext2 File System Driver for Windows / Discussion / Ext2Fsd: You need to format the disk in drive before you can use it". sourceforge.net. Retrieved 2019-10-07.
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