Accessing Wubi Disks from Windows

**jettplane** · May 8th, 2007

I thought I'd post a how to on accessing Wubi disks from the Windows installation.

First, install Ext2 Files System Driver, an open source Ext2 driver by Matt Wu at http://www.ext2fsd.com. You need this to let Windows be able to read Ext2 file systems.

Next, install FileDisk, a virtual disk driver under GNU license. The home page of FileDisk is http://www.acc.umu.se/~; the download link is http://www.acc.umu.se/~bosse/filedisk.zip. Instructions for use of FileDisk are in the archive-it is just a system file that adds a command line program called filedisk.

Create a batch file to mount your disks. Here is what mine looks like in lindisks.bat:

filedisk /mount 0 c:\wubi\disks\system.virtual.disk l:
filedisk /mount 1 c:\wubi\disks\home.virtual.disk y:
filedisk /mount 2 c:\wubi\disks\swap.virtual.disk x:

You can add the .bat file to your start up if you want access when ever you start up. You should now be able to use these drive mappings to look at any of your linux files. I have not had any problems reading files so far, but some files do not copy back and forth between Windows and the disks. You get an error message when this happens. The files you are most likely to use, such as documents, work very well.

**tuxcantfly** · May 8th, 2007

or you could simply use explore2fs...

http://www.chrysocome.net/explore2fs

just select "open file" when prompted, and drag-and-drop your files over

note that explore2fs is read-only, though, so you'll want to use the above method if you need read-write

**tuxcantfly** · May 8th, 2007

or, you might also want to check out virtual volumes, supposedly has read-write support for disk images, though I haven't ever tried it...

http://www.chrysocome.net/virtualvolumes

**itsjareds** · July 11th, 2008

FileDisk link is broken; here is the new link: Download FileDisk

**naelphin** · July 15th, 2008

Thanks for the link to the explore2fs-1.08beta9 it helps and does't require installing a driver.

Thanks again.

**nwubie** · July 16th, 2008

Thanks a lot for that jettplane ! I just messed with some setting that wouldn't allow Ubuntu to boot even in recovery mode and your solution allowed me to restore the backup files.

And thanks to itsjareds for the updated link to Filedisk.

I used Stephan Schreiber's Ext2 Installable File System For Windows instead of Matt Wu's driver.

Virtual Volumes (version 0.5) didn't work. It installed properly but I got an error when running the program and it wouldn't let me browse for an image file.

explore2fs works great if you only want to get some file out of the wubi installation. I like it that it's a standalone .exe file : no installation and no leftovers.

**SheridanZhoy** · August 5th, 2009

I haven't been able to access my Wubi files from either ext2 IFS or explore 2fs...
I'm not sure what file I'm looking for under C:\ubuntu\disks . The files there are root.disk and swap.disk. There are also two folders called "boot" and "shared".

Explore 2fs says it's looking for a .ext2 or a .img file and ext2 IFS doesn't let you point it to a file, as far as I can tell, so I don't know what to do.