How To: Ubuntu & Windows seeing each other

[u2rcrazy]

I'm running a dual boot machine with Ubuntu 10.45 and Windows 7. Ubuntu is able to see the windows partition, but Windows can't see Ubuntu. Also I have a second Ubuntu partition that I believe I made the Home folder, but I'm not sure if this is the case. How can I enable my Ubuntu partitions to be seen by Windows? To help assist you, I have provided a screen shot of GParted which shows how the drive is decided up.

160806

Thanks for your time!!

Bob:guitar:

[JimSBjd]

Hey, I'm pretty new at this, but my general understanding is this:

Ubuntu (and most linux distros also) use a filesystem that is either ext3 or ext4. 10.04 for example uses ext4 as a default filesystem. They also have support built in to be able to read/write to an NTFS or FAT/FAT32 partition.

Windows 7/Vista/XP/2000/NT use a filesystem called NTFS. They can also support FAT/FAT32. They DO NOT have the inherent ability to read or write to a linux filesystem such as ext4.

So, in a dual boot situation, where one partition has Ubuntu, and another partition Windows 7, Ubuntu can mount the Windows 7 partition, but Windows 7 cannot mount the ext4 partition.

About the only way for Windows 7 to see files on an Ubuntu machine is if they are separate computers, and you use Samba to set up a workgroup - then Windows 7 can see files placed in a share folder on the Ubuntu machine.

Hope that helps.