[SOLVED]Why USB live drive 2 partitions can not be seen

Why second partition can not be seen from Windows

I have Zorin 8 core os. installed to a 8 Gb USB drive and I made there an other 5,3 GB fat 32 partition for
data storing. It works fine in Linux, but if I want to use it on Windows 7 side to access data storage
on the second partition, Windows 7 do not see that partition. It can see only the first partition where
I have the Zorin 8 os. folders.

Is there any dual booter who can help to get access also from Windows 7 to the second partition
of USB, where I have all (live)data stored? All other data storing "devices" can be seen in both systems
when I open the "computer" menus. I do not know whether this is a partition or formatting issue of USB
or related only to some Windows 7's feature.

Hi, you might like to try one of the programs listed and let us know which one works the best for you!

http://www.howtogeek.com/112888/3-ways- ... m-windows/

Thanks for information. I looked through the linked article and I got some understanding that it is little complicated to get access from Windows to Linux formatted partitions. It is requiring some extra software to Windows and to use Ext 2,3 or 4 formatted partitions in Linux. In the article there were 3 alternative software, that could be used to access Linux data from Windows. The first one "Ext2Fsd" seems to be the one which I preferably would want to use due to there are full R/W access to the data and it is best integrated to Windows os. user interface . Although the writer had some skepticism to this application.

Is there anyone who has used or tried to use these pieces of software to get some additional information how they works? This issue can't be so new that there are not any experience until now. I do not want to start to hassle with all three alternatives or something that already has been detected to be nonworking. It would be nice if someone could share experiences related to this or some other similar software to get Linux accessible from Windows.

One thing I do not undestand here, I have a external HDD (Buffalo 500Gb) connected to a USB port and it works fine both from Windows and Linux having only one partition. I checked what was the file system there. In Linux it was indicated to be "msdos" and in Windows it was fat32. I also tried just whether it works ok with Libre Office Writer to read and write document in both Windows and Linux side, no difference all worked ok. I tried also connect a San Disk 8Gd drive to the USB having one fat32 filesystem and stored data there and it worked ok. It seems to be something to do with more than 1 partition in one device that Windows don t want to handle. On Linux side there are no problem with two partitions it launches both immediately. Can someone tell what are the difference with my USB live installation that the fat32 second partition does not work on Windows?

What I am assuming is that Windows 7 can handle fat 32 formated datastorage without any additional software but it can see only the first partition and the second partition is ignored. It seems to load the driver for fat32 when you connect the USB to your computer, but it can see only one, the first partition. So. there should be a solution to see also the other partitions to be launched. Untill that can be solved, one solution is to use separate USB device with only one partition for data storing to be accesable also from Windows or a two partition USBlive device can be used also so that you backup your data folders from USB live device to some other data storage where you have Windows access. The later method saves you 1 USB port during the session.


Zorin 8/8.1 Core and Ultimate 32 Bit, Ubunbtu 13.10 32 Bit, Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit, Asus AMD Athlon 64 Bit X2 Dual core 4000+, HP 530 Intel Celeron M 32 Bit

Zorin can read NTFS so you could try and format the second partition as NTFS and that should be accessible from your Windows AND Zorin!

Thans for the wink. I have here still some questions . Can all Zorin applications use NTFS format read/write and store data? Here I refer to what Windows said. Even if it can use fat32 formatted data so it could not use my Buffalo external HDD to backup due to it was not NTFS formatted. So is it possible that the problem is only transferred from one place to an other. I still wonder is it really so that Windows can not launch more than the first partition from the USB device, what ever format it is.( Here some Windows specialist could show the best available know how ).

I can try later some changes to formats and possible try some software to get it going. However if it is not possible to launch other partitions, there are some known workarounds to get access to needed data also from Windows. It is however not so straight forward as it could be.

One thing I have not tried is partitioning a USB drive, but that might change - had to go out and buy one (well at least I earned it via a job I did for someone at the weekend!) as my USB stick of 3-4 years gave up the ghost! But at the moment I am reinstating OS's under MultiSystem (to me the best USB boot manager of .isos out there!

To day I made a new installation to a 16 Gb of Usb drive. I made a two partition system so that there is a persistent Zorin 8,1 in the first partition and a HOME live directory in the second partition. For some reason now both partitions were launched to be accessible also from Windows. There are not clear reason why the previous installations failed to launch the second partition on Windows.


Zorin 8/8.1 Core and Ultimate 32 Bit, Ubunbtu 13.10 32 Bit, Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit, Asus AMD Athlon 64 Bit X2 Dual core 4000+, HP 530 Intel Celeron M 32 Bit