File Systems..

Dionysos21 · #1 27th March 2006, 06:34 AM

I have three hard drives, one with windows, one with fedora, and one media drive. What File System should I use to easily access my files from both operating systems?

#2 27th March 2006, 06:57 AM

id recomend just leavnigthe media drive fat32..

there are drivers around for windows to be able to view ext3 drivers and the like.. but.. its still not worth the fuss..

keep everyone happy and use a fat32 driver for all your media

multescugeorge@ · #3 27th March 2006, 06:59 AM

Fat32
It is supported by the kernel with no problems.

steve_waters · #4 27th March 2006, 08:04 AM

Not worth the fuss?

If you use the installer it takes a small download plus thirty seconds to run the program. You then have the advantage of being able to store larger single files, which if you are doing video editing, virtual machines etc is very handy. I also think that the ext3 has better security than FAT32. ( I may be wrong on the security thing)

For mine it is worth the fuss.

WebbyWoo · #5 27th March 2006, 09:42 AM

on this subject, can i install fedora to a fat32 part? so i can image it in windows?

steve_waters · #6 27th March 2006, 09:57 AM

Depending on imaging program you may be able to install Fedora on what ever you wish and still get an image of it.

By image you are talking complete bit copy of your hard drive aren't you? You can even load up Fedora and take the image from Fedora or using a live CD ('Helix' for example), depending on what your purposr for taking the the image is.

WebbyWoo · #7 27th March 2006, 11:19 AM

Yes thats exactly what i want to be able to do.
I want to load a program in Fedora that will image my fedora install (either exact or just the data), and save the image across the network.

What application can do this? the programs that i have seen will not read a LVM partition.

steve_waters · #8 28th March 2006, 08:44 AM

You can do this with netcat and dd, already on your system. You can set up a listener on the machine to be imaged and then send the dd command to lsitener from the machine where you want the image to be saved. We use it for forensic acquistion of live machines when they can not be shut down, not 100% foresically correct but sometimes it has to do.

Using dd you can either clone the entire hard, copy hdd to image file which can be mounted using the on a loop and accessable within Linux. You can copy sections of the hard disk you can do a whole lot of other stuff that I am not that converse with. Very hadny little tool as is netcat which is a great networking utility.

You could use dd to copy hard drive or partition as a local image file then maually copy the image across to wherever you want.

Try 'man dd' and 'man nc'

Try google for 'netcat' and 'dd' or 'dd clone operating system'

also check out this link to start with

http://www.rajeevnet.com/hacks_hints...s_cloning.html

Steve

Saint Mike · #9 28th March 2006, 09:09 AM

You could install fedora onto fat32 as long as the kernal can read off it.

Anyone know the diff between fat32 and vfat? can read both in windows

As far as i know and iv looked all over the place you can only read ext3 in windows and you can only read NTFS in linux. These are both easy to do and you get the advantages of the better filesystems.

Do you rekon you will be using one alot more then the other? only reason i use windows is for the occasional game i cant get to work in cedega so i have all my drives ext3 except for a small partition of fat32 for interchanging files

steve_waters · #10 28th March 2006, 09:30 AM

You can read wirte to ext3 in Windows.

I have windows and fedora on one hdd and then my second data drive formatted in ext3 I use as a shared drive, I point Winodws 'My Documents' at it and have it mounted as my linux /home.

WebbyWoo · #11 28th March 2006, 09:34 AM

Steve, brilliant i will look into that. just to clarify i only want a data backup not an exact structure backup. so i should be able to use 'dd' to create an image of the partition, will i be able to save this image back onto the same partition? or not? i'm guessing not, but maybe straight over the network?

Mike, at the moment i am using windows more. i've made a list of things my server machine currently does and i'm working down this list to see if fedora can replace xp on it.
just need to learn how to make backups and then find a downloader/uploader program, btw do you know of one? i have gftp and d4x but they don't quite cover what getright can do. i can give getright a list of uploads and it will turn my comp off once finshed. gftp can not do this and d4x will not upload

thanks guys

steve_waters · #12 28th March 2006, 10:12 AM

Without knowing I would say no as you reading as you are writing to the partition.

There are backup programs avalible for Linux that will do just data backups.

http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=32984

or even just google linux data back-up

Saint Mike · #13 29th March 2006, 02:00 AM

Steve what are you using to write to ext3 in windows?

If ya mean ext2ifs-0.3 it crashes all the time for me and distroyed a heap of files so iv stoped using it

#14 29th March 2006, 05:07 AM

thats exactly why i use a fat32 filesystem..

notice bugger all performance difference anyway.. and its just easier and has provided less hassles.

Why make it hard for yourself?

steve_waters · #15 29th March 2006, 08:18 AM

Yea that one but version 1.10.1 and I have had troubles with it been using for about two months now it is running virtual mahcines on windows, forensic eveidence files, mounting images, music etc etc.

Maybe I am lucky for the time being, but as I said fingers crossed no dramas yet