How to Read Ext4/Ext3 File Systems in MS Windows?

Ext4 is the latest version of the "Ext" journaling file system of GNU/Linux. I think it was Ext2, few years ago which was the main file system. It was really a big pain in the as* because at that time you had to like, check the file system after a certain number of mounts or system boots. It also used to take a long time to check for errors where MS Windows XP was also around at that time with the impressive NTFS file system too.

Anyhow, it's quite amazing what can happen after few years and thanks to a lot of developments and dedications of a lot of Kernel and other GNU/Linux core developers, now we have some highly durable, quite efficient, not just one but a lot of file systems in GNU/Linux.

Apart from all that, still when it comes to loading and handling a folder filled with thousands of files (both small and bigger ones), in my experience, MS Windows handles these folders way faster than GNU/Linux does. So there's still a long way to go and feels like has a lot of room for features and improvements.

Also, Ext won't be having a "Ext5" as far as I know and as a result GNU/Linux distributions such as Fedora has already begun the migration to the newer (and better) GNU file system called Btrfs with their upcoming version 16.

But since we aren't gonna be seeing this switch from Ext to Btrfs in a massive scale in the recent future (or maybe not), would you like to know how to read/mount Ext2/Ext3 and Ext4 partitions in MS Windows?. If so, there's a simple yet powerful utility called Ext2Fsd (Ext file system driver for Windows) that lets you do exactly that.

Main features...

*. Ext2/Ext3 FS read and write support.

*. Read only for Ext4 (although you can force it to write, but I won't recommend it and even if you use the old Ext3 FS, try to use it in read-only mode, just like as I do with NTFS in GNU/Linux).

*. Mount drives and display them in My Computer.

*. Change mount point or drive letters (you can make Ext2Fsd to temporarily mount your drives which will be lost after a reboot or mount them permanently too).

*. Even if you have a Ext4 file system mounted, it's still be displayed as "Ext3" in Ext2Fsd which is normal.

*. Perform fsck and checksum while mounted on MS Windows... are among its main features to mention.

You can get it from this Ex2Fsd Project home page if you want to give it a try. After installing you can run it by main two methods.

1. Run it in the system tray area  OR

2. Run as a services (which makes it invincible).

As in the above screenshot, you can access those options by click on: "File" from its main menu bar and choosing the appropriate option. If however, after mounting the Ext3/4 file system, you got a message from MS Windows saying that the disk is not-formated (yikes!), then simply reboot your PC and remount, which should solve your problems. Good luck.

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Recuva: Recover Deleted files for Free!

It's a bit sad that even after all these years still I haven't come up with a deleted file recover GUI tool for GNU/Linux other than the command-line utilities (so if you know one, please tell me about it :D). But luckily if you use MS Windows, there a huge list of free applications that lets you recover deleted files but after using for a long time, I'm quite fond of the one called "Recuva".

But the point is, no matter what utility that you use, recovering a file successfully may not always work since it depends on various things such as the duration from the day that you deleted the file, operating system, file size, type of the file system, the deletion method (there are dedicated tools that make it almost impossible to recover), etc. But I think most of the time luck has a lot to do with it too.

For instance, you may be able to recover a file even after months after deleting it as long as the operating system hasn't over-ride its bytes with data of another. And also the size of the file also matters as anyone can see since if you deleted a text file of 25Kb and also a video file of say 25MB. Then after a long time of the deletion, you may still be able to recover the text file with 100% success but may not be able to fully recover the video file.

The awesome Recuva :)...

The reason is simple actually. The text file is so small in its size thus the chances of the OS over-writing its data with another one is small (may not always be true though). But the more size the file occupies the more chances of its "portions" being over-written which jeopardize the whole recovering operation.

But then again if you're lucky or unlucky the OS may have "chosen" to over-ride that 25Kb text file but even after few weeks (if not months) the video file may still be there. So luck or chance or whatever you call it do play a role (or perhaps its just programming algorhythms that made the decision for the OS to what to over-ride and what not to... okay I'm confused :D).

Anyhow, as I was saying, if you're using MS Windows and looking for a utility to recover files for free, then Recuva is one of the best without a doubt!. It has been there for a long time now and has evolved a lot too. It basically has a two "scan-modes".

*. Basic Mode (launched by default): 

As the name denotes, this mode is the best option for recovering files that are just or recently deleted with less amount of scanning time. And even if you have deleted them a while ago I'd still recommended you go for this scan-mode first since it scans really fast (also remember, the bigger the partition/location + the data in it the more time it's gonna take).

But if you couldn't find the file that you were looking for by using the default scan-mode, well then you can try using the "Deep Scan" Mode.

*. Deep Scan Mode: 

If all fails this may come to your rescue :). This will try to recover your data by scanning your partition or locations that you assign more thoroughly. As said, no application can guarantee you a 100% success when it comes to data recovery... but "Deep Scan" is the best option if you cannot see your deleted files while using the default scan mode.

Main features...

*. Excellent Wizard type modes that makes the whole process really easy to understand and newbie friendly.

*. Filter out file types that you don't want.

*. Search within the recovered files.

*. Assign whole HDD, partitions or folder locations manually.

*. Supports all the MS Windows proprietary file systems such as FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, exFAT, NTFS, NTFS5 , NTFS + EFS.

*. Also supports other types of storage devices such as memory cards, USB pen-drives, Digital cameras, Jaz disks, Secure digital cards, etc.

*. External Zip, USB and Firewire devices are also supported.

*. Preview window for images (this will show a small preview/thumbnail of images or other files that are recover-able).

*. Not just recovering your files, you can even use it to securely delete your files too!.

*. Shows "found" files in main three colors:

1. Green - This means we're good to go. The file is 100% recoverable!.

2. Yellow - Well, you may still be able to recover the file 100% (maybe) or just portions. For instance, more than once I've successfully recovered multimedia files that were "marked yellow" by Recuva which MS Media player wasn't able to play afterwards!.

But luckily, other useful Players such as VLC, SMPlayer, etc were able to play the file. The reason MS Media player (it ain't that much A powerful player anyway) not being able to play it was due to the fact that, since it was a "Yellow" one and I think it had lost some of data of the header (think of it as an index of the file).

3. Red - Red means the file is in really bad condition (over written by other data, corrupted). So most of the time you'll not be able to recover them.

But Recuva does let you recover all these three "colorized" files nonetheless.

Few tips while using...

*. Never recover your files to the save partition/location where the deleted files are located.

*. As mentioned before, try the default "light scan mode" first. If it fails, then use the "Deep Scan" mode.

*. If you only want to recover certain type of files (say "Pictures"), then make the proper choices before doing the "scan" which helps to speed things up.

*. If you know the location of the deleted files, then manually locate the location in Recuva, which again should help to speedup the process since it doesn't have to scan the whole disk/partitions.

*. If you use its built in secure file deletion feature, then your data will most probably be lost forever!. But secure file deleting methods do have their advantages too ... the choice is yours.

As said, Recuva is a completely free file recovering utility designed for Microsoft Windows operating system and if interested, you can download it from this official Recuva home page. Enjoy!.

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Speccy: an Excellent, System Information Utility for Windows

Apparently, apart from GNU/Linux, there's this whole other operating system called MS Windows :P and I thought that I should write a few articles for the MS Windows users from time to time as well. So, if you use Microsoft windows and searching for a free tool to get advanced system information about your PC, although I'm pretty sure there's a whole bunch of 'em out there, but this one called "Speccy" is an excellent little utility in my experience.

To be honest, even without a dedicated utility, in MS Windows we can easily see the hardware & software related information without much of a hassle when compared to GNU/Linux (although we do have dedicated utilities such as Hardinfo for the GNU/Linux geeks too) but still, after installing something like Speccy makes the whole process much more easy nonetheless.

Main features...

*. It's completely free to begin with. Although the do have two paid versions but when compared with the free version, the only differences are that, they come with online technical support + lets you install the application in more than one computer. Other than that, the free version does not lack any features!.

*. Comes with a very user friendly GUI (although I would've preferred a bit "light" theme, not a huge thing anyway) with to the left side it displays the gathered hardware in Categories and to the right-side it displays the information per individual hardware.

*. Summary:

A "quick summary" of your computer/system which includes the operating system version, CPU, RAM, Motherboard, Graphics, Hard Drives, Optical Drives and Audio Devices.

*. As mentioned before, whenever you click on an individual (say the "CPU" for instance) icon, then it'll display a full information about the hardware such as the Cache, Stepping, Cores, etc.

*. Ability to save the details as Snapshots or save as XML or text files.

*. Few language support.

*. Publish your system information online (what a great way to showoff :D).

Other than all of these features, applications such as these has another great practical usage. For instance, let's say that you just installed MS Windows OS on your PC and don't have the proper driver for the VGA/GPU and don't even know its name.

Then you can install a system information/reporting utility such as Speccy and by using it, you will (most of the time) be able to know which GPU that you have (or any other installed hardware in that case) so you could find the appropriate drives with ease. If you wanna give it a try, get it from this Speccy download page. Good luck.

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Format Factory - An Excellent Multimedia Converter for MS Windows!

Although unlike with GNU/Linux, with Microsoft Windows doesn't make it that harder to "deal" with multimedia files by default... from DVD rippers to advanced video converters/suits... you can find almost anything for Windows because of its popularity.

But one of the problems with Windows is that, although you're flooded with "options" yet most of them aren't that free. Or the free ones aren't that "capable" either. Anyhow, if you were looking for one of the best multimedia converting utility that's totally free + comes with a lot of features by default, then I highly recommend Format factory!.

Format factory is actually another front-end that's written for the one of the best cross-platform multimedia players called MPLayer... which it uses to play the audio/videos and for the encoding tasks, it uses the built in encoder for MPlayer called MEncoder!.

So FF is actually a GUI but the rest assured, it certainly makes your life easier since MEncoder, by default (despite all of its features) is a command-line tool. Format Factory comes with a full codec pack of its own, so you don't have to manually download them either.

DVP ripping (can convert individual videos as well...)

From things to converting audio to audios, videos into different formats (including - bitrate changing, cropping, resizing, change aspect ratio, add remove subtitles, etc) to DVD ripping, it's a full featured converting suite. If you have a PSP or iPhone, etc then FF comes with a built in presets for that as well. As said before, the best thing about it is, it's completely free!.

Again, this is only for the Microsoft Windows users (Supports XP/2000/Vista and Windows 7), if you want to give it a try, then please visit this official Format Factory web link. Good luck.

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Notebook Hardware Control (NHC), Powerful ACPI Manager for your PC!

Windows Vista and 7 do come with advanced ACPI options when comparing with windows XP. For instance, if you have a never CPU (AMD or Intel) with Vista or 7 you can easily set-up different speed settings (if your CPU support that) and other hardware power related settings ... especially for Laptops which can help to get a longer battery life which is very handy.

Main GUI... (use it at your own risk)

But with Windows XP, the OS is so old that even if you have a CPU which was introduced around 2005-2007... with XP, setting advanced options, most of the time are not possible. In that case if you're looking for a fully featured ACPI manager that lets you control not just CPU but other things like...

*. CPU speed/Voltage settings.

*. Hard drive speed settings (which can help to get a noticeable amount of battery life).

*. Various battery related options/settings and readings (how many percentage it has, etc).

*. ATI GPU (VGA cards) related speed settings that can enhance battery life.

*. CPU/HDD temperature monitoring.

*. Easy to use GUI +, you can set it to display live data about your PC on the desktop as well.

These are among the main features of NHC - Notebook hardware control.

Unfortunately this is only for Microsoft windows users... cannot be run in GNU/Linux. Even if you have Windows Vista or 7 still I think this is a more powerful tool than what those OS allow their users to change (safely). It comes with main two versions, free and a professional one.

Before downloading, I advice you to read this FAQ first and then proceed to this downloading page.

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