How to read ext4 partitions on Windows?
Try Linux Reader by Diskinternals, it’s the best tool I have found that really works well. Unlike Ext2Fsd, Ext2Read or Ext4Explorer which don’t even give you basic information like how many files you have when you open up a folder.
@Samir Linux Reader does not work at all under Windows 10. Cannot open by itself (inside list of drives) and when trying to mount under drive letter, throws a lot of nags about the need of purchasing pro version and mounts a drive that has only one file on it, called «Storage» in size of entire disk.
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Ext2Read works well. It can also open & read disk images ( eg: Wubi disk images)
Ext2Read is an explorer like utility to explore ext2/ext3/ext4 files. It now supports LVM2 and EXT4 extents. It can be used to view and copy files and folders. It can recursively copy entire folders. It can also be used to view and copy disk and file
There are several reviews on the site of users complaining about virus infection. Ad-Aware reported it as infected to me. I’ll do some more testing on my side and report this to project’s mailing list. As for the report, it seems that Anubis is down at the moment. The PDF version of the report is here. It clearly shows where the virus is poking.
Here are results of VirusTotal and Anubis (from a clean system). To me it looks like it’s poking around in registry where is shouldn’t be poking around.
On the other hand here are VirusTotal results for previous version and Anubis results for previous version. The poking around the registry could come form the crash. I’m still not sure what to make of it.
It doesn’t support removable devices. Try putting a SD card with an Ext4 partition on it inside a SD card reader and try reading it with this software. It won’t work. It only supports internal HDD devices. For external and removable, get Linux Reader by Diskinternals.
Newest release of ext2read/ext2explore is also infected so be careful while downloading this software. Take a look at this VirusTotal report
DiskInternals Linux Reader
This program plays the role of a bridge between your Windows and Ext2/Ext3/Ext4, HFS and ReiserFS file systems.
- Integrated with Windows Explorer
- Reader for Ext2/3/4, ReiserFS, Reiser4, HFS, HFS+, FAT, exFAT, NTFS, ReFS, UFS2
- Can create and open disk images
- Freeware
This does work to browse even large partitions of 500GB on an MBR partitioned disk, including ext4. However it’s only a recovery (copy to another partition) tool, with preview of files but no way to open them.
Does not work at all under Windows 10. Cannot open by itself (inside list of drives) and when trying to mount under drive letter, throws a lot of nags about the need of purchasing pro version and mounts a drive that has only one file on it, called «Storage» in size of entire disk.
WARNING
According to multiple reports, it does not work on Windows 10 version 1909 and later
EXT2FSD works for reading ext4 filesystems, though not all of ext4’s capabilities are supported.
After installing set a letter to each Linux drive (see screen-shot) and then restart the application. After that Windows Explorer will show the Linux partitions as any other partition.
I wanted to recommend the same app, but I was put off by the comments. If it worked for you, edit your response to let the OP know it works. Positive feedback on an app is important.
In Windows 7: I see no features missing in ext4. All options available in the Windows Explorer. — what ext4 capabilities are you referring to?
As of Windows 10 version 1909 , this doesn’t appear to work. After I mount a ext4 partition and is assigned a drive letter, double-clicking the drive says that I have to Format it first (which, of course, I don’t want to do). 🙁
WSL2 on Windows 10 Build 20211
Windows allows now to mount physical disks using the Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL).
However, there is a limitation with this approach as noted in the Microsoft documentation. For convenience, this limitation is noted here:
- At this time, only entire disks can be attached to WSL 2, meaning that it’s not possible to attach only a partition. Concretely, this means that it’s not possible to use wsl —mount to read a partition on the boot device, because that device can’t be detached from Windows.
For people who are not familiar with WSL2:
. Windows Subsystem for Linux is a compatibility layer for running Linux binary executables natively on Windows 10 and Windows Server 2019. In May 2019, WSL 2 was announced, introducing important changes such as a real Linux kernel, through a subset of Hyper-V features. .
find more on Wikipedia
The Windows 10 WSL2 now supports a mount command for linux filesystems called wsl.
First of all you have to install WSL2 on your windows10+ release. I recommend to simply follow the microsoft installation guide (note the minimum version required).
- Identify the disk Open a powershell (or something else) and type
wmic diskdrive list brief wsl —mount option is only available to those using Windows 10 Build 20211, which is in the Insiders update channel as of the time of the writing (according to docs.microsoft.com/pt-br/windows/wsl/wsl2-mount-disk)
you are right — it’s the insider version, however it will be soon implemented in the standard option.
Please specify this as one of the first points in your answer if you don’t want users to go down the The disk is in use or locked by another process rabbit hole after spending an ungodly amount of time getting WSL2 running. Quote from the MS WSL doc, Limitations: At this time, only entire disks can be attached to WSL 2, meaning that it’s not possible to attach only a partition. Concretely, this means that it’s not possible to use wsl —mount to read a partition on the boot device, because that device can’t be detached from Windows.
Well not really a solution, but I use VirtualBox, use it as a bridge.
In windows add a raw disk, install a linux guest OS, add a shared folder, then you can read/write ext4 in virtualBox.
@Anwar Lifehacker has a tutorial on this, see lifehacker.com/how-to-dual-boot-and-virtualize-the-same-partition-on-y-493223329
There is now another solution: Paragon ExtFS for Windows, which acts as a file system driver and so you don’t need to use a specialized program to access your files.
- Fast and easy read/write access to Ext2 / Ext3 / Ext4 under Windows
- The only solution with Ext4 read — write support!
- Easy-to-install and supports Windows 8 / 7 / Vista / XP
edit 2015-04-06 you might want to stick to read files off Linux — there have been anecdotal reports of file system corruptions when writing files to ext4 partitions using Paragon
Or so I thought before getting my partition corrupted. Apparently I’m not the only one. hecticgeek.com/2014/02/extfs-windows-corrupts-ext4-windows-8
Just used it, I did set to «read-only», but still got the disk corruption. Going back to ext2fs, take extreme care when using this.
@Adversus knows whats up. Do not use this. I too suffered disk corruption and trying to help them out by providing logs and such yielded one of the worst support conversations I have ever had.
ext4explorer
Ext4Explore is a program that allows Linux partitions to be browsed from Microsoft Windows. It has a GUI which will be familiar to users of Windows Explorer.
- Displays Windows Icons
- Symbolic Links Displayed with ‘Shortcut’ Overlay
- Follows Symbolic Links and Displays Correct File Information
- Copy Files and Directories
- Configurable Edit Context Menu Option
I tried the latest version with Windows 10 and a USB with a ext4 formatted partition. The program only reported «No linux partitions found.» I guess Windows 10 is a at present.
Ext2Fsd was common in the past, but it’s usually outdated and constantly broken in newer Windows in my experience. You can also see that in many comments. There’s a fork of it called Ext4Fsd
This is a branch of the Ext2Fsd project by Matt Wu where I try to implement support for metadata checksums and jbd2. I have also updated the project so it can be compiled with Visual Studio 2017 and Visual Studio 2019. This is work in progress. If you need a stable driver you should get the latest official release from http://www.ext2fsd.com.
You can try it at your own risk
Ext4Fsd is an ext2/3/4 file system driver for Windows (XP/Vista/7/8/10). It’s a free and open-source software, everyone can modify or distribute under GNU GPLv2.
DiskGenius is available as a free, versatile partition manager, running under Windows OS, up to and including Windows 10 v. 1909, that includes the ability to read extn (i.e., ext, ext2, ext3 & ext4)partitions. It allows full access to files and folders in those partitions. (There are also commercially licensed versions, but for the use described, the free versions should be sufficient.)
It also provides access to virtual disks created by some disk imaging software, such as Macrium Reflect. Reflect enables one to mount a disk image as a virtual disk, but browsing the image can only be done for file systems for which Windows has drivers. However, the mounted image can be explored in DiskGenius.
[Sadly, Ext2Fsd does not work on my current version of Windows, and Ext2Fsd has not been updated in years. It would have been nice to add drivers directly to Windows OS.]
@Phill, There are currently 3 versions of DiskGenius: Free, Standard and Professional. For the use described, free is sufficient. See diskgenius.com/editions.php The paid versions have additional features, such as file recovery.
If you want to copy a 1gb file (not recover it) you need the pro version. So it’s not free. Not a good solution for just being too lazy to boot into linux and move a file and boot back into windows.
@Phil, your comment does not apply to the question: simply how to read ext4 files from Windows. No mention of length, nor even access to Linux.
So “read” is “I can see the file exists” and that’s it. No ability to open the file, copy, move, etc. Just see it exists?
If you want to dual boot Ubuntu (or any Linux-based OS) with Windows and read ext3/ext4 filesystem, you can use Ext2FSD. Although you may need to take special steps as explained below.
I’ve successfully used Ext2fsd on Windows 7 to read my ext4 (!) filesystem this way.
For those interested, more detailed how-to is here: Read ext3/ext4 Partition from Windows 7:
Originally Posted by berm0o0da on August 29, 2010 :
The newest version of Ext2Read open source software can read normal Ext4 filesystems from Windows, even with ‘extents’ feature bit enabled! Please share your experience with this software in the comments.
If you use Windows 7 and want to dual-boot Ubuntu (or another Linux-based operating system), you’ll want to be able to read Ubuntu files from Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2.
From Ubuntu Karmic Koala 9.10 ext4 filesystem uses by default, and previous versions use ext3 and ext2 filesystems. There are several good options to read and write ext2 filesystems from Windows systems, but ext3 or ext4 support is an entirely different scenario.
- When creating/formatting the ext4 filesystem, make sure to add -O ^extent which means disabling the “extent” feature bit. The following steps will not work if your ext4 filesystem still has “extent” feature enabled. ext2 and ext3 partitions should be fine.
- Download ext2fsd here.
- Right-click the downloaded file and click Properties. Set the compatibility mode to “Windows Vista Service Pack 2″ and check “Run as administrator”.
- Run the ext2fsd installer. During install, I recommend you uncheck the “enable write access” feature to safeguard against losing data in your Linux partitions.
- Restart Windows 7.
- Run the Ext2 Volume Manager from Start Menu.