Freelance Technical Digital Media Consultant
How to Mount a Linux LVM2 Partition in Windows
I have a dual boot Windows Vista / Linux Laptop and recently I needed to access the Linux partitions from within Windows to copy data between the operating systems.
So I did a bit of searching on the net and had trouble finding a tool/page describing how to do it with an LVM (Logical Volume Manager) partition, all tools seemed to just work with plain old ext2 or ext3 file systems with no mention of others.
This is a problem with at least CentOS 5.1 (Red Hat Enterprise) and probably all modern Linux distributions as there seems to be a move towards the LVM methodology for all operating systems - understandably so when you read what it's all about from wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_volume_management
But then I noticed that Explore2FS from chrysocome.net actually also supports LVM2 as well as ext2 / ext3, and it works great!
All I had to do was download (at the time of writing) explore2fs 1.08beta9 extract it from the archive and run it - job done! I can get to my standard Linux files (and more actually) with ease from within windows through an explorer style interface. Just what I needed!
The guy(s) who developed Explore2FS are also working on another tool called Virtual Volumes but this really is a beta (at the time of writing) and I couldn't get this to work in a useful way what so ever BUT this should be a winner when it works too!
So now it just remains for me to setup ntfs support in CentOS 5.1 and I can go both ways - woohoo!
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| Print article | This entry was posted by Chris on February 10, 2008 at 11:24 pm, and is filed under CentOS, Linux, Microsoft, Windows. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
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about 3 years ago
I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you down the road!
about 3 years ago
I found this via google. Thank for your nice post.
about 3 years ago
Great tip!
about 3 years ago
It shows nothing on my PC. I am running Windows XP SP2 and Ubuntu 8.10 (LVM). Still looking for a solution.
about 3 years ago
Thanks for the tip. Here is one to help you: NTFS-3g driver for NTFS under Centos 5.2. Great driver. Works well
about 3 years ago
Thanks a lot…! It worked well for me too.
After searching a long way on Google, it is finally you who have really helped.
Thanx Lol…!
about 2 years ago
I’m running CentOS 5.1 and Vista and I see nothing… Still looking as well.
about 2 years ago
I had to use “Run as Administrator” to see anything, and even then, only the boot volume, not the LVM LVs (or PVs) were visible.
about 2 years ago
My LVM partition refuses to be recognized. The non-LVM ext2 boot partition shows up fine, but no software I’ve used (ext2fsd, Virtual Volumes, and some others) can recognize it.
about 1 year ago
No way. I have Windows XP SP2 and explore2fs 1.08beta9 does not work for me. Same with Virtual Volumes. I have dual boot with CentOS 5.3.
about 1 year ago
Thanks!!! I have a similar setup and can see LVM from windows. Great tip.
about 1 year ago
Its read only support, isn’t it ?
you posted this on Feb’08, its Oct’10
and still read only support from explore2fs guys?
ohh wait, there project is for read only systems !!??
about 1 year ago
Very usful information!
Just find it doesn’t support ext4. It seems I still need to wait for later vesions.
about 5 months ago
Thanks for the tip, I’ve been playing about with all sorts of configurations with linux boot cd’s, vmware, and windows ext reading programs such as explore2fs, but didnt realize xplore2fs 8 beta 9 had LVM support, the thing is even this isnt displaying the data on the LVM partition, only the other ext2 partitions, I’ve mounted it using a program called IFS Drives too which also displays in windows computer management all healthy partitions, the explore2fs 8 beta 9 displays “error block size”
If anyone has a solution it would be most appreciated.