Unix disk...can a windows machine read it

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Wed Jul 10, 2002 12:41 pm

So if say I had a Unix computer, and wrote files to a floppy disk or a zip drive....could I take that disk, bring it over to a Windoze machine, and read it?

In other words....file format work across platforms?

MAmuT · Post by **MAmuT** » Wed Jul 10, 2002 2:03 pm

Only if the disk has FAT32 format otherwise its not going to. I think Linux doesnt reconize FAT only FAT32. At least that works on HDD, i havent tryed with floppies

AND I THINK SPEEDGUIDE.NET SHOULD HAVE A LINUX FORUM

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Wed Jul 10, 2002 2:16 pm

This is an older UNIX machine....real UNIX.

MAmuT · Post by **MAmuT** » Wed Jul 10, 2002 2:23 pm

HUUMMMM ahhhhh REAL UNIX i dont know man, sorry. But for LINUX works

.

But you can give it a shot format the disk to FAT32 and then try to copy the FILES from UNIX to the disk and try to open them on WINDOZE

cyberskye · Post by **cyberskye** » Wed Jul 10, 2002 4:15 pm

going from unix to windows? what kind of files?

read the man page for "dos2unix"

Skye

Edit: if this is going to come up often, you might also want to look at samba. It's free and is the unix implementation of SmallMessageBlock.

Stef · Post by **Stef** » Wed Jul 10, 2002 6:27 pm

Write a FAT12 filesystem on the floppy, FAT 16, 32 or NTFS on the ZIP disk

See what man fdformat has to say about formating floppys.

Depending on which UNIX system your using you'll probly need to know how to use fdisk, create a slice, and disklabel it. Then you'll need to create a mount point (if it does'nt already have one) and format it

Stef

MAmuT · Post by **MAmuT** » Wed Jul 10, 2002 7:30 pm

Depending on which UNIX system your using you'll probly need to know how to use fdisk, create a slice, and disklabel it. Then you'll need to create a mount point (if it does'nt already have one) and format it

EVERYONE IS CONFUESED NOW LOLOLOLOLOLOL Just kidding

cyberskye · Post by **cyberskye** » Thu Jul 11, 2002 11:50 am

Remember the sequence here - YOSC wants to write to a floppy from a unix box and have the windows box read it. Linux is the closest unix flavor to windows and has the most built-in tools to enable interoperability. Most "classic" unix flavors (DEC, HP-UX, AIX, and Solaris) are getting better now but don't/didn't have much in the way of FAT/32/NTFS support - especially if it's an older rev.

Stu · Post by **Stu** » Sat Jul 13, 2002 2:49 am

If you use a windows compatible formatted disk, you can install mtools on the unix box and just mcopy the files to the disk. You can get mtools from several places, including Unix Guru Universe (here's a link to their mtools page).

As for the "real unix" comment, I don't think there's been a "real", or at least standardized, unix since it left Bell Labs in the 70's. Each company that developed "their own" unix put in system specific "features" that made them different from the others. Granted, many of the commands are the same between them--but, the administrative tools and utilities differ from one to the next...