Thinkpads Forum

I have installed Ubuntu (Dapper) on my T60 and everything works fine. Sincie this is my first experience with dual systems, I was curious whether it's doable to share a folder between Linux and XP on the same machine.

I can see the Windows partition under Linux but it's read only. Any ideas? Thanks

look for

ntfs-3g ubuntu

on google.

I think it should be pretty straight forward. It was easy on debian, which is closely related.

Many thanks. Will try it out tonight

MeaninglessNick wrote:look for

ntfs-3g ubuntu

on google.

I think it should be pretty straight forward. It was easy on debian, which is closely related.

Just don't play around with the partition editors at all on your NTFS partitions. gParted ate a couple of my windows partitions when I tried to resize them.

Please correct me:
Does XP Home support NTFS?

As far as I know, it doesn't support ntfs, only fat32. So, there's no issue to access xp folder's from Linux.

Anyways, I recommend you create a small fat32 partition to store data shared among both OS.

Good luck

Melvyn wrote:Please correct me:
Does XP Home support NTFS?

As far as I know, it doesn't support ntfs, only fat32. <snip>
Good luck

No. Definitely No. Windows NT4, Windows 2000, Windows XP Home (yuccchh!) and Windows XP Pro *all* support NTFS. And no one, under any circumstances, use FAT with these systems. It is much too unreliable and prone to corruption. ... JDH

jdhurst wrote:And no one, under any circumstances, use FAT with these systems. It is much too unreliable and prone to corruption. ... JDH

Normally I'd agree with you JD, but he's wanting to share with Linux. IIRC Linux can read from NTFS just fine but writing to NTFS is risky and can corrupt the file system in rare cases.

The safest thing might be to create a small shared partition formatted as FAT that both Win and Lin can use to transfer files back and forth.

Ed Gibbs

@egibbs - that is handy to know.

What I prefer to do in this case is run Linux as a virtual machine, and then I just network the two machines. Corruption is not a problem in this case, and files can be shared and moved easily. Not everyone likes this method, however.
... JDH

jdhurst wrote:No. Definitely No. Windows NT4, Windows 2000, Windows XP Home (yuccchh!) and Windows XP Pro *all* support NTFS. And no one, under any circumstances, use FAT with these systems. It is much too unreliable and prone to corruption. ... JDH

Well, well, I know xphome can access, read, write and execute over fat32. I've read that xphome lost some xppro features like ntfs.

I don't use xphome. Never installed it. I've seen several OEM machines with xp home preinstalled and all them use fat32.

By the way, I don't recomend FAT too.

Melvyn wrote:<snip>
Well, well, I know xphome can access, read, write and execute over fat32. I've read that xphome lost some xppro features like ntfs.

I don't use xphome. Never installed it. I've seen several OEM machines with xp home preinstalled and all them use fat32.

By the way, I don't recomend FAT too.

The post I responded to suggested XP Home *cannot* use NTFS. That is not true.

Any of the NTFS systems, however, *can* use FAT, but it is not recommended.

E Gibbs clarification for a small interchange partition is fine, but in general, NTFS is best.
... JDH

Obviously you have to make up your own mind whether to believe it, but the ntfs-3g project claims to be much safer than the old ntfs code. See their their web page for more information.

Your milage may vary, and if it eats your cat, don't blame me. Always have a backup (of your files anyway, if not your cat).