Reading/Writing Ext4 in Windows 8.1

[smc805]

I have a 2TB HDD formatted Ext4 I used on an old Ubuntu (12.x) system. Other components of that system have since failed, and I haven't utilized that drive ever since. That drive contained a large music library, video library, photos, etc.

I've recently built a cheap gaming/entertainment rig, I'd like to (assuming the drive still works) be able to read the Ext4 file system from within Win8.1. So far I've found utilities that make it possible to copy files from Ext4 into the NTFS Win partition, but if I'm viewing large video files (and since my NTFS partition is an SSD) that isn't particularly practical. I'm hoping for something that will allow me to view/read files natively, and in a perfect world even write to the Ext4.

Is this possible? Does anyone have any experience with this?

Any experience or insight is greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

 

[boosted1g]

Here is software to mount ext4: http://www.paragon-software.com/home/extfs-windows/

 

[smc805]

Here is software to mount ext4: http://www.paragon-software.com/home/extfs-windows/

Hey, thanks for the fast response!

This is what I'm worried about though...

http://www.hecticgeek.com/2014/02/extfs-windows-corrupts-ext4-windows-8/

 

[boosted1g]

You could always run a Linux live cd (or usb drive), boot from that and then from there you should be able to mount the drives and copy from the ext4 drive to an ntfs drive.

 

[smc805]

You could always run a Linux live cd (or usb drive), boot from that and then from there you should be able to mount the drives and copy from the ext4 drive to an ntfs drive.

What I'm mostly concerned about are large video files that I have on the Ext4. I don't want to have to copy them to the NTFS SSD before I can view them in Windows. Is there a way I can not only see the files in their directory on the Ext4, but also open them in VLC or something w/o needing to copy them to the SSD first? That just seems kind of clunky and I don't want to be using writes on the SSD like that if I can avoid it.

 

[boosted1g]

you can use ext2fsd to mount the drives, but I would not use this as permanent solution.
Get an external or different drive and copy to files to it if you don't want to put the stress on your SSD

 

[smc805]

you can use ext2fsd to mount the drives, but I would not use this as permanent solution.

Just curious, how come? Not a stable utility??

 

[boosted1g]

I would not trust any of the ext utilities for writing and changing files to the drive.
Just seems risky relying on software to do something windows cant do that could ruin all the data on the drive.

 

[smc805]

I would not trust any of the ext utilities for writing and changing files to the drive.
Just seems risky relying on software to do something windows cant do that could ruin all the data on the drive.

Gotcha. What if I scrap trying to write from Windows, and just read the Ext4 instead?

 

[Pinhedd]

I would not trust any of the ext utilities for writing and changing files to the drive.
Just seems risky relying on software to do something windows cant do that could ruin all the data on the drive.

Gotcha. What if I scrap trying to write from Windows, and just read the Ext4 instead?

Most modern Linux distributions have NTFS-3G which is very stable. You'd be best off booting into Linux and using that to copy data between the volumes.

 

[boosted1g]

I would not trust any of the ext utilities for writing and changing files to the drive.
Just seems risky relying on software to do something windows cant do that could ruin all the data on the drive.

Gotcha. What if I scrap trying to write from Windows, and just read the Ext4 instead?

Do what you want, but I would not leave the data on the ext4 formatted drive.
You are just rolling the dice that windows will not corrupt something when mounting the drive that it does not natively even support. A 1 out of 10 chance of failure is pretty good if doing it once or twice, not so much if you going to do it 20 times.