Extend support (EXT4) with Windows driver

Features Ext2Fsd supports:

ext2/ext3 volume reading & writing
ext3 journal replay when mounting
various codepage: utf8, cp936, cp950 …
mountpoint automatical assignment
large inode size: 128, 256, …
large file size bigger than 4G
OS: 2k, xp, vista, server 2008 (i386/amd64)
Features Ext2Fsd doesn’t support:

ext3 journal support
htree for directory entry management
ext4 extent support
LVM and Linux raid (md)
NT4 is no longer supported.
Win7 or server 2008 r2 support are uncertain.

http://www.ext2fsd.com/

Bo Brantén made a nice patch:

This is an updated version of the driver Ext2Fsd, to use it install
Ext2Fsd 0.48 from http://sourceforge.n.../ext2fsd/files/ and then copy
the new driver ext2fsd.sys to \Windows\system32\drivers, chk is debug version,
fre is normal version, i386 is for 32-bit systems, amd64 is for 64-bit systems.

This driver has support for ext4 extents.

This driver is not signed so on 64-bit systems you must press F8 and select
"Disable enforce driver signing" at boot.

Changes:
*\Sources Comment out BROWSER_INFO=TRUE to allow building with the WDK.
cleanup.c Fix for compile error on free 64-bit version.
cmcb.c Fix for compile error on free 64-bit version.
dirctl.c Don't show files stored with ext4 extents since we can't read them yet.
read.c Fix for BSOD that showed up on Windows 7.
write.c Fix for BSOD that showed up on Windows 7.
create.c FILE_SUPERSEDE should create a file if it does not exist.
fsctl.c Allow caling Ext2GetRetrievalPointers from kernel mode.
*.c Temporarily disable DbgBreak to let users try the checked version.
fsctl.c Implement Ext2GetRetrievalPointerBase.
generic.c Support for ext4 extents.

Bo Brantén

http://www.acc.umu.se/~bosse/

Very cool. It would be nice to see a universal windows filesystem framework to where we could add new filesystems.

Nevertheless, it's good to see this available. Have you tried it under a real machine already?

I used it in read only mode on an ext4 partition in the meanwhile, without problems.

Ext4 support is now also in the official Ext2Fsd driver:

==================================

Release Notes for Ext2Fsd V0.50

==================================



Features implemented and bugfix from V0.48:

    1, Ext4 extent readonly support by Bo Branten. Writing is

       possible but with no size-extending

    2, Ext3 directory index (hash-tree) support

    3, Fast fsck (uninit_bg) and group block checksum support

    4, Ext4 64k block size support

    5, Symlink/special inodes open/read/deletion support

    6, Buffer head implemented over cache pages

    7, Memory allocation optimization for flexible-size inodes

    8, Improve file deletion: don't grab global lock when deleting

    9, FIXME: return zero-content for sparse file gaps

   10, FIXME: check available spaces before blocks allocation

   11, FIXME: refresh stale root dir content after journal replay

   12, FIXME: incompatible dentry management for 64k block size

   13, FIXME: don't do journal replay for devices set as readonly

   14, FIXME: Win7 cmd.exe always reports file sizes as zero

   15, FIXME: Win7 memory throttling issue calling CcPinRead

   16, FIXME: Ext3Fsd Build issues (SLIST/div64 for Win2k, browser files)

   17, FIXME: Compiling test failure (fastio doesn't update i_size)

   18, FIXME: Possible Mcb memory leak for symbolic links



Supported Ext3/4 features by 0.50:

    1, flexible inode size: > 128 bytes, up to block size

    2, dir_index:    htree directory index

    3, filetype:     extra file mode in dentry

    4, large_file:   > 4G files supported

    5, sparse_super: super block backup in group descriptor

    6, uninit_bg:    fast fsck and group checksum

    7, extent:       reading, writing with no extending.

    8, journal:      only support replay for internal journal



Unsupported Ext3/4 features:

    1, journal: log-based operations, external journal

    2, extent: size truncating & expanding, file deletion

    2, flex_bg: first metadata group

    3, EA (extended attributes), ACL support



Features to be implemented in future:

    1, EXT3/4 features support (extents, journal, flex_bg,)

    2, Documents improvement: clear and elaborate

    3, Performance improvement, code optimization

    4, Automatic check & update of new versions

    5, LVM support, e2fsprogs porting for Windows



Files descriptions:

    Ext2Fsd-0.50.exe:  setup wizard for Windows systems (Win2k, Winxp,

                       Vista, Win7, Server 2003, Server 2008/R2)

    Ext2Fsd-0.50.7z:   Batch setup package in 7-zip

    Ext2Fsd-0.50.zip:  Batch setup package in zip

    Ext2Fsd-0.50.src.7z:  Source codes of Ext3Fsd and Ext2Mgr in 7-zip

    Ext2Fsd-0.50.src.zip: Source codes of Ext3Fsd and Ext2Mgr in zip



Download link:

    http://sourceforge.net/projects/ext2fsd/files/Ext2fsd/0.50/



Files checksum:

    C:\Works\Ext2fsd\0.50>sha1sum Ext2Fsd-0.50*

    bec1b29452473a36dc99c163b7bedbc4bb53707d *Ext2Fsd-0.50.7z

    51cd8b7362ca3b401d455e2338f2c9eb9f97ae30 *Ext2Fsd-0.50.exe

    28f9f3456bfc104fb0773e26c26e8c2fc663663a *Ext2Fsd-0.50.src.7z

    844bce05d203d81d53f69493ae4a5b11dfb73667 *Ext2Fsd-0.50.src.zip

    747ed2f3eb22bf3f67fae7084f6c895f516e6058 *Ext2Fsd-0.50.zip



WARNINGS:

    The driver may crash your system and ruin your data unexpectedly,

    since there might be software conflicts and I could only test it

    on some of the popular platforms. You should use it with care and

    use it at your own risk!

http://www.ext2fsd.com

Found also another program that can read ext4 partitions: Ext2read

we are pleased to announce a new version of our ext2read project

FEATURES:
Simple UI designed using QT4.
View/Read Ext2/ext3/ext4 partitions.
Linux LVM2 Support.
Ext4 Large File support (untested).
Recursively Copy the entire folder or even /
Support for external USB disks.
Support for disk and filesystem images. For eg. Wubi users can just
open their root.disk file through this program.
LRU based Block cache for faster access.
Unicode support.

If you find any bugs, have any questions or comments. Please let us know.

The executables and sources can be downloaded from http://ext2read.sf.net

If any of you are interested in joing this project, you can join the
mailing list and discuss. Join from here
https://lists.source.../ext2read-devel

Enjoy reading your files.

NOTE: This program must be run as Administrator. right click the file
and select run as Administrator.
This is not a transparent file system driver jusr a user space tool.
The LVM2 metadata can be complex because of the wide variety of configuration posibilities. All configurations has not been tested. If Lvm2 does not work in your system, please file a bug with your LVM2 metadata.

http://ext2read.blogspot.com/

I didn't try this one yet.

I have tried ext2read.
http://agnipulse.com...ndows-ext2read/

It does not install any driver.It acts like a portable application.You can only view and copy files from your ext4 partitions to windows.