I cleared up a space on the C drive and installed Linux on that partition. Can Windows see files in my Linux partition?

When i installed Linux, i didn’t encrypt it but it is password protected. Thanks

  • macniel@feddit.org
    0·
    5 months ago

    Unless you’ve installed a linux filesystem driver, your Windows can’t do shit with that apparently unformatted partition.

  • MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
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    5 months ago

    Out of the box I don’t think windows can read common linux filesystems, but there is 3rd party software I’ve seen to give it that functionality.

  • The Bard in Green@lemmy.starlightkel.xyz
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    5 months ago

    • Theoretically Yes, if your Linux partition is not encrypted, any OS can read it. Password protecting it doesn’t do anything to conceal your data, just keeps people from logging into your system while Linux is booted. If this is a security / privacy related question, there is nothing to stop a program in your Windows partition from reading the data on your Linux partition except

    • Practically No, depending on the file system you chose (if you went with the default, it’s likely ext4 but could be something more exotic). Out of the box Windows lacks the software / drivers to read most Linux file systems. If this is a “can I access my files” question, you probably need to install something like this to read your data from Windows. Note that the reverse is not true. Most distros other than light weight distros like Alpine are perfectly able to read the NTFS file system out of the box. Sometimes they can’t write to it unless you install additional tools (like OOTB Debian probably can’t, but I’m pretty sure OOTB Linux Mint can if you change a setting and IDK about OOTB Ubuntu / Fedora / Arch).

    The easiest way to share data between Windows and Linux is with a 3rd partition formatted to FAT32, as both Linux and Windows have no problem reading from / writing to it without additional software.

    • BombOmOm@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      5 months ago

      a 3rd partition formatted to FAT32

      exFAT is also pretty solid for this purpose and doesn’t have the file size limitations that FAT32 has.

    • 14th_cylon@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      If this is a security / privacy related question, there is nothing to stop a program running under Windows from reading the data

      There is also nothing to prevent anyone to just run some live Linux from USB, so don’t consider data on that Linux partition neither secure, nor private

      • Random Dent@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        5 months ago

        I remember being really surprised when I learned this lol. My SO had an old Windows work laptop that they’d forgotten the password for, and just out of curiosity I tried running a live Linux USB to see if we could access anything, and discovered that we could see everything from every user on there, and that login passwords really didn’t do anything at all. It was a real “we should encrypt all our drives” moment.

  • hackerwacker@lemmy.ml
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    5 months ago

    We don’t know.

    While Windows doesn’t present the ability to read Linux filesystems to the user, that doesn’t mean that it can’t do it at all for some for some covert security state purpose.