Read and write to antiX LiveUSB from Windows

[Member seaken64]

I noticed the other day that when I put in my most recent antiX LiveUSB stick into one of my Windows 10 machines it did not recognize the file system and offered to reformat it. I think this is because it has the ext4 file system on it and Windows is confused.

But on my last antiX LiveUSB I can put that stick in the Windows machine and copy and read files from it like it was a floppy disk. This is what I want.

I think this is because I used unetbootin or Rufus, or LiLi USB Maker, from windows to make the initial antiX USB. Then I proceeded to setup the persistence etc. This previous stick is using the FAT32 file system. This is what I want for read and write access from my Windows machines.

But when I made this latest antiX LiveUSB I used the live-usb-maker utility from the antiX Control Centre. It works good and I can boot from it just fine. But I can’t read and write files to it on my Windows machine. That is not what I want.

So, am I correct in thinking that if I want to read and write files to the USB stick from Windows (using it like a floppy disk) I should not use live-usb-maker, but instead use a windows tool? Of course, I have no problem when reading a writing to this USB from Linux. Only with Windows.

Or, is there a choice to use FAT32 when using LUM? Or can I have more than one partition? Will LUM use only the partition I tell it to, or will it just take over the whole drive?

Thanks for any help you can offer.
Seaken64

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

Helpful

Up

0

::

When you use lum-gui there is an option Percent of USB-device to use.

Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways; the point is to change it.

antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.

[Member seaken64]

Helpful

Up

0

::

anticapitalista wrote:

When you use lum-gui there is an option Percent of USB-device to use.

Thanks anti! I did not make that connection before. I will try using that limiter and then setting up a separate FAT32 partition. I’d rather use LUM. Thanks for that tip.

Seaken64

[Moderator christophe]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Seaken64, please update here how this works. I’m wondering also about this issue but only have Windows at work. I’d like to have one large usb for my portable antix & general files compatible with work files…

confirmed antiX frugaler, since 2019

[Member seaken64]

Helpful

Up

0

::

I’m going to have to figure out something else. For now it seems that setting up a separate FAT32 partition may not work. Windows won’t see the partitions beyond the first, at least not without some help. I will look into this more later. For now I am going to stick with ext4 for my LiveUSB so that I can have better file safety.

Seaken64

[Member seaken64]

Helpful

Up

0

::

From what I understand there is a way to reorder the partition on the USB so that the FAT32 partition will be #1 while the LiveUSB partition is #2. But I will look into that later once I figure out how to create a proper Multiboot for antiX and MX. I’ll come back to this thread.

Seaken64

[Forum Admin BitJam]

Helpful

Up

0

::

@seaken64, we had too many complaints about irrecoverable data loss when people used fat32 for their live usbs. If you want to have the first partition be fat32 and the 2nd partition be ext4 with the live-usb stuff, there is a recipe for swapping them around in this thread; antiX live usb maker PARTITION TABLE issue?. This will change the partitioning to gpt and this will cause problems on some Dell models.

It breaks my heart when our users needlessly lose all their data. In addition, there have been a lot of bogus myths and suggestions saying fat32 and ext2 are better for usb sticks and there are a lot of people who fall for this nonsense and still believe it. Few people take the risk of data loss seriously until it happens to them. You can probably still make an antiX/MX fat32 live-usb with Rufus. You could also do it manually by saving everything on the ext4 partition, use mkfs.vfat to convert it to a fat32 partition and copy everything back. If you want to boot legacy then you will need to run syslinux to reinstall the bootloader. I’d call this Kovorian
mode and I think it is ill-advised unless you absolutely do not care about losing all of your data.

There is an old saying that there are two kinds of people in the world, those who have never lost any data and those who make backups. I think there may be something similar about losing data due to an unreliable file system.

It’s like asking someone to make cars without seatbelts or air bags. Sure, the chances of any one person dying or worse may be small but the manufacturer will still have a lot of blood on their hands.

Context is worth 80 IQ points -- Alan Kay

[Anonymous]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Rufus still works, but…

rufus/wiki/FAQ#do-you-plan-to-add-multiple-partition-support

Do you plan to add multiple partition support?

No.

I briefly toyed with the idea, but I don’t think it’s worth it, especially as it’s a lot more than just creating a bunch of partitions. As with multiboot, you’re probably much better off acquiring the knowledge of doing it yourself, than relying on an automated tool to do that for you, and have no clue what’s going on when you run into trouble.

What’s more, unless your USB Flash Drive is set by the manufacturer to behave as a fixed drive (99% aren’t), Windows will not let you see more than a single partition on it (that is unless you are using Windows 10 Creators Update or later). So that makes the idea of using multiple partition a bit moot, when only one of them can be seen at any one time by Windows.

[Author]

Posts