Member Avatar for kris.c

hi all,
I am still a student and I still havent had any formal caoching on OS.. I have installed WIN XP and SUSE LINUX on my pc.,when i am working in XP,i can see the files that I create in linux and other way around too. I am not able to understand how this is possible as I have actually partitioned my hard disk before I installed linux.. Can some one explain how this is happening.But, on some other machines, i have observed that the files in one OS are invisible to the other OS...
thanks

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- the behavior you described is covered in part by and . Below are practical, non-redundant steps and precautions to confirm what is happening and to avoid data loss when switching between OSes.

Start with simple checks. In Windows open Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc) and look for the partition list and any volumes without drive letters. In Linux run lsblk -f or blkid and mount to see which devices are present, what type the OS reports, and where they are mounted. Create a tiny test file on the suspect partition from each OS to verify read and write behavior and to observe ownership and timestamps.

Common causes of one-way invisibility are that a partition is present but not assigned a drive letter in Windows, or not auto-mounted in Linux. Windows features that leave disks in a hibernated state (hybrid shutdown / fast startup) can also make a partition unsafe to mount from the other OS; always fully shut down before switching if you share a disk. Filename rules, case sensitivity, POSIX permissions and symbolic links differ between OSes and can make files appear "missing" or behave oddly even when visible.

For reliable sharing, keep user data on a dedicated data volume (not system partitions) and use a proven cross-platform strategy: a shared local partition formatted for cross-OS access, or network/cloud storage. Always keep backups before changing mount options or filesystem drivers. If a partition shows but is not writable or is labeled as "dirty", repair it from the native OS tools before using it from the other OS.

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Member Avatar for TheNSS

The cause for this is that the partitions were fomatted the same. In my box I have Vista and xp, in xp, I can see the files I have in Vista, In vista , I can see the files in xp, it just happens.

Member Avatar for DMR

Whether or not data on any given partition can be viewed by an OS depends upon 2 things:

1. With which filesystem the partition was formatted.
2. Whether or not the OS in question supports that filesystem.

* Windows-native filesystems are FAT and NTFS; Windows itself does not recognize Linux filesystems at all, although third-party utilities can provide that functionality.

* The most common Linux-native filesystems are EXT2, EXT3, and ReiserFS. Linux supports a much wider variety of filesytems than that, including Windows filesystems; Linux has full (native) read/write support for FAT, and read suppport for NTFS. NTFS write support can be enabled, but it is not recommended as the feature is technically still only "experimental".

The fact that you can "see" your SuSE partition from Windows most likely means that you formatted the SuSE partition with the FAT32 filesystem (it ispossible to install Linux on a FAT32 partition).

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