Sep
24
2010

Access ext4 files from Windows with Ext2read

The ext4 or fourth extended filesystem is a journaling file system for Linux, developed as the successor to ext3.It is the default filesystem used in almost all popular Linux Distros such as Ubuntu.
Earlier when ext3 was in use, windows users could access the ext3 partition with an ext3 driver such as Ext2Fsd.However this driver could not work with the newer Ext4 filesystem.If you tried accessing an Ext4 filesystem with this driver, you could only see the filenames of the root directory.

Later Soluvas found a workaround to read Ext4 filesystem from within Windows using Ext2Fsd.However this workaround involves disabling the extents feature by formatting your ext4 partition.This workaround is not very encouraging.I did not want disable the extents feature of my ext4 partition.

Today I found Ext2Read a free tool, which solves the problem of accessing ext4 partitions from within windows.This tool supports the extents feature of Ext4.The best part about this tool is that it is a standalone tool and does not install any driver on your computer.You can carry this tool in your USB Flash Drive and access ext2/3/4 files on any computer without worrying about installing drivers and restarting the computer.

  1. Download Ext2Read
  2. Extract the zip file
  3. Run ext2explore.exe.It will scan your computer for any ext2/3/4 partitions and  display an explorer like window with all the files in your ext* partition.

Ext2Read Homepage
Ext2Read SourceForge Page

Ext2Read is an explorer like utility to explore ext2/ext3/ext4 files. It supports Linux LVM2 and  file system images. It can be used to view and copy files and folders.

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.

Thanks to Manish and Rajesh for developing this wonderful tool.

«

»

About the Author: Bharat Balegere

Bharat Balegere is a 27 year old blogger from Bengaluru. He is a technology enthusiast and loves tinkering with computers and usb drives.

4 Comments + Add Comment

  • I was looking for this for awhile. When i tried to unzip ext2explore.exe my Kaspersky Anti-virus popped up saying that there was a worm inside it and couldn’t disinfect it. So it only made sense deleting the file. Anyone getting AV warnings on this file?

  • Me too Etescartz! But it’s when I download Ext2Read…

  • Thanks! Tried a few apps, this is the only one that worked for me

Leave a comment