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I want to read and copy an ext3 file system on mac os x snow leopard.

Search points to using macfuse (MacFUSE-2.0.3,2) with fuse ext2 (0.0.7)

Which seems to work, but copy stops with: 

unexpected error occurred error code -8084

Also some files containing swedish characters are not displayed properly, so I am suspicious maybe ext3 features are not fully supported?

This blog describes an entirely different approach

But it needs a Linux guest.

Any help, advice or explanation appreciated.

Sathyajith Bhat
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Viktor Trón
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  • I'd only use MacFuse to access filesystems that are well-supported on Linux Fuse -- e.g. NTFS. Is using a virtual machine that big of a problem?

    If you regularly share data between various OSes, maybe picking a common denominator filesystem (e.g. FAT32 or NTFS, the latter can be read by OS X and Linux natively, and written to with FUSE) is a solution

     –  Aug 12 '11 at 14:38
  • i know hircus, i'd love to use other formats, but it's a given. BTW, FAT has file size restriction, NTFS has directory-depth restrictions. –  Aug 12 '11 at 14:44
  • I know how that feels -- I cannot easily share my Btrfs external hard disks, and if I want to use Dragonfly BSD's Hammer file system, I have to boot a Dragonfly virtual machine.

    What sort of data do you have, that you run across NTFS' directory-depth restrictions?

     –  Aug 12 '11 at 14:55
  • I know you mentioned already having tried Macfuse and fuse ext2, but check the info in this post and see if anything there helps you. – nhinkle Aug 12 '11 at 17:05
  • I can't speak for being able to access ext3 from mac (I'm searching for the same solution), but as per the funny characters, it seems Mac uses (or used) a perverted version of UTF which causes those character problems. I had the same problem trying to backup files to a linux box via samba, took a lot of googling to work that out, and I never really found an ideal way to fix it. – Jeff Welling Mar 03 '12 at 01:13

2 Answers2

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i finally ended up using oracle virtualboxvm with an ubuntu natty box guest addition. setting up shared folders and making usb work is not for the light-hearted. used rsync after to copy, still got some errors, but still the best shot at it. (btw, writing to disk works smoothly too).

All in all, it is kinda sad that in 2011 you still need to be a hacker to read a simple ext3 properly on a mac.

Viktor Trón
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Unfortunately MacFUSE is no longer supported as per project page:

This project is no longer being maintained. We cannot currently help with any lion (or any large feline) related bugs or issues. The MacFuse google group is a decent resource for finding forks/replacement projects.

These days you can use Paragon ExtFS app for Mac, it supports ext2/3/4 volumes, including the read/write access and repairs.

Related: Mounting an ext3/4 Linux external hard drive to OS X.

kenorb
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