SAVING YOUR FILES

Writing to a Windows Hard Disk Partition: the Problem with Windows XP

NTFS File Systems

That Linux is not 100% Windows-compatible should come as no surprise: Windows does not in general adhere to open standards. The issue of open/secret file formats and its implications for Linux/Windows compatibility was discussed previously. Here we meet the same problem in a new context, the context of data storage on the hard disk.

In that previous discussion, we learned that the .doc format is a secret format that has to be "unlocked" before it can be read. The Windows NTFS file system installed with most copies of Windows NT/2000/XP is secret, as well.

Reverse engineering a secret file format is a difficult and time-consuming process. But in the future, when NTFS has been reverse engineered, we can expect that Linux will fully support the NTFS file system. Presently, you can only read NTFS file systems, not write to them. In other words, it is not possible to save files created with Snøfrix onto an NTFS-formatted hard disk. For those who have Windows XP installed and who therefore cannot save the files they created on the hard disk, we recommend one of the alternative storage media.

Additional Comments:

• If you attempt to copy to an NTFS file system, the attempt will fail with an error message. There is no harm in trying, but the file will not be copied.
• If you are very eager to write to your NTFS file system, you should know about captive.

FAT File Systems

People with Windows 95/98/ME installed should not experience any difficulty. Most of them have FAT file systems, and FAT file systems are fully supported by Linux. Many external storage devices also have FAT file systems, and are therefore supported by Linux.