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I haven't used Windows on my own machine for several years, and thus have not had the need to access ext2/3/4-formatted partitions with Windows. I had used to use ext2fsd, which, with some grumbling and inconvenience, would let me mount these volumes. But - it wasn't support to the level of the "natively" supported NTFS and FAT32 filesystems.

Has the situation improved? Are Windows 10 machines able to "just" mount ext2/3/4 partitions these days, with no special effort (other than perhaps installing a 3-rd party driver)? Is there a Microsoft driver, or another one that's robust?

Related question from 2013: How to read ext4 partitions on Windows?

einpoklum
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4 Answers4

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AFAIK, the only access to extn partitions is with third-party tools, such as free DiskGenius, which provides full read access, and claims write access, as well.

ext4 partition in DiskGenius

Here, you can see and ext4 partition mounted in DiskGenius' Explorer. However, I still view writing to a partition mounted in such a tool with some trepidation, since there is no restriction on making changes in vital locations.

DrMoishe Pippik
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Third party drivers exist. I've lost a lot of data testing the latest version (2.2, released 2010 !!) of ext2read in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. Proceed with caution, and make backups often, then verify them.

K7AAY
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  • AFAIK the software in your links don't install drivers (which give you native access to ext partitions systemwide, e.g. in Windows Explorer), but only provide an interface (file browser). – summerrain Jan 26 '24 at 20:15
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The state of ext2/3/4 support in Windows as of 2020 is still not great.

The Ext2Fsd Project you linked to is unfortunately still one of the best options, although it looks to me somewhat abandoned.

There are other options, none of them new, but they are read-only. I would in any case only read EXTn disks on Windows, it wouldn't be a good idea to update. See DiskInternals Linux Reader.

The best and safest solution would be to use on Windows a Linux virtual machine for accessing the raw disk/partition.

harrymc
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"Windows 10 now allows you to mount physical disks formatted using the Linux ext4 filesystem in the Windows Subsystem for Linux 2"

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/windows-10-now-lets-you-mount-linux-ext4-filesystems-in-wsl-2/

Jordan Morris
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  • Can I mount such filesystems as regular Windows drives? – einpoklum Jan 04 '22 at 08:53
  • this appears to require a minimum OS version which is now the first release of Windows 11... – Michael Aug 08 '22 at 22:57
  • Yes, you can. This question is literally answered in the article. "To access a mounted filesystem in Windows 10's File Explorer, you can open the Linux category and navigate to /mnt." Appears? Appearances can be deceiving. Have you not checked if they are the same version? The "minimum" in this case means "starting with Windows 10 preview build 20211". It was released September 10, 2020. First release of Windows 11 was build 22000, released June 28, 2021, nine months later. Still on Windows 10 in 2023, I can confirm that it works, on build 19045.3155, with WSL 2 (1.2.5.0) and kernel 5.15.90.1. – Samir Jul 02 '23 at 14:54