[LUNI] USB connected disk drive - connecting to Windows and Linux

[Mike Scott]

I posted a similar question a few months back and received a suggestion
that has worked very well for me.
Take a look at EXT2_IFS http://www.fs-driver.org/

Based on the suggestions I got, I partitioned my USB drive with a small
FAT partition and put the EXT2 IFS installer on it.  The rest of the
drive is partitioned and formatted as an EXT3 filesystem which mounts
directly under Linux.

On the 'doze boxes, I install the IFS driver and the drive can be
accessed directly like any other drive.  It is only EXT2, so no
journalling under Windows, but aside from that, it works great.

Based on a suggestion in the E2FSIFS ReadMe, I changed the partition
type number (using fdisk in Linux) of the EXT3 partition from 0x83 to
0x07.  This makes the volume mount automatically under Windows as
Windows only checks this number and mounts the partition thinking it is
NTFS.  The IFS driver takes over and allows read/write of the volume. 
Also, since Linux ignores the number and looks directly at the partition
itself, it too mounts without complaint.

HTH

- Mike Scott


> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: [LUNI] USB connected disk drive - connecting to Windows and
> Linux
> From: Stephan V Bechtolsheim <svbechtolsheim at yahoo.com>
> Date: Sun, September 23, 2007 9:54 am
> To: luni at luni.org
> 
> I have an HP notebook computer (running Windows XP) to which I want to connect a USB portable / external hard drive.
> That same USB portable hard drive I want to also be able to connect to a Linux computer for the purpose of backing it up
> (using rsync).
> 
> Anyone done that? Any suggestions how?
> 
> Thank you!
> 
> StvB
> 
> P.S. I have to admit that I am being lazy here in that I did not research the subject by myself at all. It's Sunday morning and right now I feel more like drinking coffee and reading my paper and not googling it ..... I was thinking though that that should work ......
> 
> 
> 
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