Mounting ext2/ext3 partitions on windows

Today I needed to mount one of my USB sticks on windows to copy some files over. To get windows to recognise it I altered/etc/mke2fs.conf and done the following.

Removed ext_addr from “base_features” and commented out the inode_size line. Here is a diff from the default ubuntu e2fsprogs /etc/mke2fs.conf with the necessary changes,

 

— /etc/mke2fs.orig.conf 2011-11-28 15:20:07.365231775 +0000
+++ /etc/mke2fs.conf 2011-11-28 15:20:48.165231803 +0000
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
[defaults]
– base_features = sparse_super,filetype,resize_inode,dir_index,ext_attr
+ base_features = sparse_super,filetype,resize_inode,dir_index
blocksize = 4096
– inode_size = 256
+ #inode_size = 256
inode_ratio = 16384

[fs_types]

Then format the partition and this will allow it to be mounted on windows.

I used DiskInternals Linux Reader on windows to mount the drive and copy the files which can be downloaded for free at

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