Quick assessment of 3 Windows tools to read/write Linux filesystems on dual-boot desktops

In message , Char Jackson
writes:
On Thu, 27 Sep 2018 17:36:41 +0200, "R.Wieser"
wrote:

Char,

Why would a 1TB drive need more than a single drive letter?

I think you missed that I was talking about FAT32 *and* that I would like to
know whats available, other than (the proprietary) NTFS.

You said "a single Terrabyte drive would easily exhaust all available
drive letters", so I'm asking why that would be the case.

Just format it with a single partition and give that partition a letter,
right?

The format command will not _offer_ you FAT32 even as an _option_ if the
partition is over a certain size. (Try it.) Windows/Microsoft
artificially limit the permissible size even more, but the utility Paul
has mentioned circumvents that limit - but there is still a maximum size
for FAT32 that is significantly lower than the limit for NTFS.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

By most scientific estimates sustained, useful fusion is ten years in
the future - and will be ten years in the future for the next fifty
years or more. - "Hamadryad", ~2016-4-4

Char,

Just format it with a single partition and give that partition a
letter, right?

Are you playing a silly game or something ? :-(

If not, what didn't you understand from my previous message(s) ?

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

In article , R.Wieser
wrote:


FWIW, I have a Synology (DS115j) NAS and that can power down
the drive ('HDD hibernation') when the NAS isn't accessed for a given
time.

I've heard good things about Synology (a friend of mine doesn't want to use
anything else).

overall, they're very good. there are some issues but nothing's perfect.

The problem is that I actually remove power from my computers - and other
devices like printers and switches - by flipping the switch on a powerstrip
(*after* I've shut down the involved machines ofcourse :-) ).

what for?

Although I could imagine a setup where I automatically send a "shut down
now" to the NAS and have it power-up by WOL (also automatically), I would
not really like it when the shutdown either does not get generated (or for
some reason takes too long) and I bring it down hard (most likely involving
loss of data).

a nas is designed to stay on all the time. the drives can be set to
hibernate if desired, although background processes on the nas can
sometimes prevent that. the nas can also be set to auto power-on/off on
a schedule (at least synology can).

Char Jackson wrote:
On Thu, 27 Sep 2018 17:36:41 +0200, "R.Wieser"
wrote:

Char,

Why would a 1TB drive need more than a single drive letter?
I think you missed that I was talking about FAT32 *and* that I would like to
know whats available, other than (the proprietary) NTFS.

You said "a single Terrabyte drive would easily exhaust all available
drive letters", so I'm asking why that would be the case.

Just format it with a single partition and give that partition a letter,
right?


Here's the link again.

If a partition has a drive letter, you can use this.

A 1TB drive can be a single FAT32 partition if you want.
The usual "4GB max file size" will still apply. The cluster
size will be inefficient for really small files. There will
still be a 268 million file limit.

http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/ind...at32format.htm

http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/dow...at32format.zip

I regularly use that to refresh a 72GB partition. It takes
only a second or two, to wipe the FAT.

Paul

On Thu, 27 Sep 2018 19:17:39 +0200, "R.Wieser"
wrote:

Char,

Just format it with a single partition and give that partition a
letter, right?

Are you playing a silly game or something ? :-(

No, it's a serious question.

You said "a single Terrabyte drive would easily exhaust all available
drive letters", so I'm asking why that would be the case. Why would it
need more than a single drive letter? To put it another way, why would
you want to create so many partitions that you end up exhausting your
available drive letters?

On Thu, 27 Sep 2018 18:14:29 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message , Char Jackson
writes:
On Thu, 27 Sep 2018 17:36:41 +0200, "R.Wieser"
wrote:

Char,

Why would a 1TB drive need more than a single drive letter?

I think you missed that I was talking about FAT32 *and* that I would like to
know whats available, other than (the proprietary) NTFS.

You said "a single Terrabyte drive would easily exhaust all available
drive letters", so I'm asking why that would be the case.

Just format it with a single partition and give that partition a letter,
right?

The format command will not _offer_ you FAT32 even as an _option_ if the
partition is over a certain size. (Try it.)

I'm well aware that Windows artificially limits the FAT32 partition
size, but that's a Windows limitation and has nothing to do with FAT32.
I'm sure by now that no one uses Windows to format a FAT32 partition.

Windows/Microsoft
artificially limit the permissible size even more, but the utility Paul
has mentioned circumvents that limit -

Yes, yes, I'm well aware. There are dozens, if not more, utilities that
circumvent the artificial Windows limitation.

but there is still a maximum size
for FAT32 that is significantly lower than the limit for NTFS.

And? We're talking about a 1TB drive. FAT32 partitions can be twice that
size.

You might be on to something, though. Rudy might have been limiting his
thinking to formatting a 1 TB drive via the Windows format command, but
like I said above, no one would do that.

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote in message
...
Why would a 1TB drive need more than a single drive letter?

I think you missed that I was talking about FAT32 *and* that I would like
to
know whats available, other than (the proprietary) NTFS.

You said "a single Terrabyte drive would easily exhaust all available
drive letters", so I'm asking why that would be the case.

Just format it with a single partition and give that partition a letter,
right?

The format command will not _offer_ you FAT32 even as an _option_ if the
partition is over a certain size. (Try it.) Windows/Microsoft artificially
limit the permissible size even more, but the utility Paul has mentioned
circumvents that limit - but there is still a maximum size for FAT32 that
is significantly lower than the limit for NTFS.

It is the Windows limit of 32 GB per FAT32 partition which would mean that
you would need a lot of partitions and therefore a lot of drive letters to
access all the disc (1000/32 is 32 which is greater than the number of drive
letters in the alphabet).

If you format a drive as FAT32 with a utility that doesn't have the 32 GB
limit, can Windows still access the whole drive OK - is it only the built-in
FORMAT command (and the equivalent in Windows Explorer) that is crippled, as
opposed to the underlying file- and folder-access mechanism?

The 4 GB file limit is a pain when recording video. I have an old Windows XP
PC which has a FAT32 system drive, and I'm reluctant to make any config
change to the PC since it's very sensitive to changes, and is the only PC I
have that has a *good* analogue video capture card (as opposed to the USB
ones I have which are very poor). The video capture software that I have
automatically starts a new file when the current one reaches 4 GB, but
there's a dropout of a second or so between one file and the next, so I
usually start a new capture when the file is coming up to 4 GB, and wind the
tape or Sky box player back a minute or so I get plenty of overlap and can
then make a frame-accurate join (usually at a scene change) which is
invisible.

Before anyone says, I *don't* have the capture PC on the web so it shouldn't
be vulnerable to viruses.

"Char Jackson" wrote in message
...
I'm well aware that Windows artificially limits the FAT32 partition
size, but that's a Windows limitation and has nothing to do with FAT32.
I'm sure by now that no one uses Windows to format a FAT32 partition.

I keep one pen drive as FAT32 in case I want to transfer any files to/from a
device that doesn't understand NTFS or even exFAT - some PVRs can export
their recordings to an external disc or play from an external disc, but only
if it's FAT32. It's a shame that they don't at least understand exFAT if
they don't want to pay the licensing cost for supporting NTFS.

That's about the only time I format anything as FAT32, because if I use a
device like a camera that insists on FAT32, I use that device to do the
formatting rather than using a Windows PC.

Java Jive wrote:
On 24/09/2018 20:06, Shadow wrote:

You are correct.
If I place

\\.\PhysicalDrive0\

In the location, I can see my Linux partitions.

\\.\PhysicalDrive0\6.img\

Will give me my Devuan install, but it's VERY slow compared to
ext2fs. Takes 2 minutes to load it

If you examine the progress dialogue, particularly the wording of it,
what seems to be happening is that 7-zip is copying the contents of the
drive to a temporary location within Windows, hence the long time to open.


If the wind is blowing in the right direction, you can
see it open a Windows partition with 400000 files in it,
in about four seconds. The only way to do it that quickly,
is to read the $MFT directly.

It depends on the version of 7ZIP and what mood it's in.

Other times, you'll see the disk light on solid, and
the progress indicator will tell you it's going to take
20 minutes. And if you're not careful, your swap will
start swapping (and you could run out of virtual memory).

7ZIP also won't open any arbitrary disk config. I'm
still trying to figure out what it gets snagged on.
At first I thought it might be a dirty file system
problem, but that wasn't it. I've experienced what
looked like "CHS geometry" problems when opening
..vhd files. I don't know if there is a concise summary
around, of what the rough edges are. One thing I'm missing
right now, is the right kind of alignment tool to
change my "test" disk back to CHS multiple-of-63
alignment, just to see if it prefers that.

What I'm working with, is a disk which won't open in
7ZIP, and I'm trying to test what manipulations I
can do to it, until it starts to work.

Paul

"Char Jackson" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 27 Sep 2018 19:17:39 +0200, "R.Wieser"
wrote:

Char,

Just format it with a single partition and give that partition a
letter, right?

Are you playing a silly game or something ? :-(

No, it's a serious question.

You said "a single Terrabyte drive would easily exhaust all available
drive letters", so I'm asking why that would be the case. Why would it
need more than a single drive letter? To put it another way, why would
you want to create so many partitions that you end up exhausting your
available drive letters?

If you only have a formatting program (such as the one built into Windows)
which can only create partitions up to 32 GB in size. If you use a
third-party formatter than can format up to the real limit of FAT32, can
Windows already read it right to the end of the partition?

Char,

You might be on to something, though. Rudy might have been
limiting his thinking to formatting a 1 TB drive via the Windows
format command,

Yes, I have. Funny how you, or at least I, tend to use the OSes own tools
to manage it. No idea why that would be. Do you have any ?

but like I said above, no one would do that.

Not one, but for me and all the people who install XP from DVD I guess ?
Would be hard to execute that third-party format command before you have an
OS available ...

In short, I consider people who use such a "no one" claim - against direct
proof of it being incorrect, if only in regard to the person they wish to
use it towards - as wishful thinkers, and actually purposely lying.

I'm well aware that Windows artificially limits the FAT32
partition size,

And by acting as if the whole world should be actutily aware of it you've
made an ass of yourself.

But thank you for reminding me that FAT32 can fact can be much bigger - as
long as you are comfortable with using third-party tools, which I'm not.
Which, FYI is also the reason I forgot all about it.

So, goodbye. Even though you have been of some kind of value I do not wish
to deal with your caustic approach of the matter.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

On Thu, 27 Sep 2018 19:49:15 +0100, "NY" wrote:

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote in message
...
Why would a 1TB drive need more than a single drive letter?

I think you missed that I was talking about FAT32 *and* that I would like
to
know whats available, other than (the proprietary) NTFS.

You said "a single Terrabyte drive would easily exhaust all available
drive letters", so I'm asking why that would be the case.

Just format it with a single partition and give that partition a letter,
right?

The format command will not _offer_ you FAT32 even as an _option_ if the
partition is over a certain size. (Try it.) Windows/Microsoft artificially
limit the permissible size even more, but the utility Paul has mentioned
circumvents that limit - but there is still a maximum size for FAT32 that
is significantly lower than the limit for NTFS.


It is the Windows limit of 32 GB per FAT32 partition which would mean that
you would need a lot of partitions and therefore a lot of drive letters to
access all the disc (1000/32 is 32 which is greater than the number of drive
letters in the alphabet).



Windows does *not* a have limit of 32GB per FAT32 partition. It's the
Windows *Format command* which has that limit, but as Char said,
there are many third-party utilities that do not have that limitation.


If you format a drive as FAT32 with a utility that doesn't have the 32 GB
limit, can Windows still access the whole drive OK - is it only the built-in
FORMAT command (and the equivalent in Windows Explorer) that is crippled, as
opposed to the underlying file- and folder-access mechanism?


Yes, as Char said, and as I said above.

On 9/24/2018 8:55 AM, Arlen H. Holder wrote:
I dual boot Windows/Ubuntu because Ubuntu 18.04 natively provides
simultaneous full and complete read and write access to the entire visible
file system of Windows, Android, and iOS.
....
Since the price of freeware is the effort it takes to find the best ones,
my quick test clearly indicates I should likely first spend my learning
efforts on the "LinuxReader" and to ditch the other two (unless there's a
reason I learn later to do otherwise).


Thank you for the review.

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"Ken Blake" wrote in message
...
It is the Windows limit of 32 GB per FAT32 partition which would mean that
you would need a lot of partitions and therefore a lot of drive letters to
access all the disc (1000/32 is 32 which is greater than the number of
drive
letters in the alphabet).

Windows does *not* a have limit of 32GB per FAT32 partition. It's the
Windows *Format command* which has that limit, but as Char said,
there are many third-party utilities that do not have that limitation.


If you format a drive as FAT32 with a utility that doesn't have the 32 GB
limit, can Windows still access the whole drive OK - is it only the
built-in
FORMAT command (and the equivalent in Windows Explorer) that is crippled,
as
opposed to the underlying file- and folder-access mechanism?


Yes, as Char said, and as I said above.

Thanks for answering that. I wasn't sure how widespread the limit was: if
it's only the format command and not disk-access once the drive has been
formatted then it makes a great deal of sense to use a third-party tool to
format the drive - once you are aware than it is the Windows format command,
and not the FAT32 filesystem design, which imposes the limit.

Until today I'd thought that the 32 GB limit was common to all devices that
use FAT32 and was part of the standard. I've been brainwashed by Windows :-)
Does anyone know why the Windows command can't go bigger than 32 GB - is it
a bug that has never been fixed? Or is it faster and/or more space-efficient
to use exFAT or NTFS for a larger partition so they imposed an arbitrary
limit even though the underlying standard has a much higher limit.

Interesting that my phone formats its 64 GB card as exFAT. Maybe that's to
get round the 4 GB file limit. Presumably as long as it didn't use the same
sort of code as the Windows format command, it could have used FAT32
instead - as long as 4 GB file wasn't an issue.

Mick Finnlay
news:s76pqdtlkioega361pjpi5tsjms59chp9o@smokescree n.eof Thu, 27 Sep
2018 09:06:26 GMT in alt.comp.freeware, wrote:

It does. You'll notice, they specifically (like myself) do NOT
encourage the use of ANY linux based software to WRITE to any
NTFS based file system. There IS a valid reason for that.

That's utter ********, putting words into my mouth I never
actually said.

I didn't intentionally put words in your mouth. I was in a bit of a
rush and mis read what you actually wrote. I do apologize for that.

I would agree though that every user has to do their own risk
analysis, based on their know-how, willingness to solve problems
and perhaps the general consensus of "those in the know". The
problem with the latter is that it's not always obvious who's in
the know.

Understood...




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