Linux to Windows, can I save files?

[LiveMusic]

I may be converting this Linux laptop to a Win machine. I have almost a thousand mp3 files on here. Is there a way I could 'save' them on this hard drive and then use them in Windows?

 

As far as that goes, what would I do to 'take Linux off' and put Windows on here?

[phaeton]

Why would you want to do that?

 

 

Actually, the answer is mostly "yes", but it depends on how your Linux installation is currently set up, how you want to set it up, and how much work you want to do.

 

The safest and easiest bet will of course be to shuffle the mp3s off the machine onto another medium. "Another medium" could be a cd, dvd, or harddrive of another computer. That's the approach -I- would take, but I don't know what you've got at your disposal right now.

 

Unfortunately I don't have the time right now to get into an answer, but I might be able to come back to this tonight.

 

Someone else may have answered you by then anyways

[LiveMusic]

This Dell Inspiron 7500 PIII 450mhz, 250mb RAM, 10GB HD doesn't have a CDRW, only a CDROM, so that's out. I do have an old Phillips portable CDRW but I'm sure the software I have for it is Windows only.

[phaeton]

Does it have an ethernet port on it (or wireless?), and do you have a small LAN at home, or any networking equipment? As you probably know, you can go ethernet to ethernet directly between computers using two NICs and a crossover cable. I routinely use ftp to transfer data back and forth between linux, freebsd, windows, solaris, etc. Keep in mind that you'll have to remind the built-in Windows FTP client to use binary format or your mp3s will get hosed.

 

The external burner (USB?) could probably be used by linux. It'll most likely take a kernel recompile and some miscellaneous mojo. I've built kernels and I've burned cds on Linux, but i've never owned an external burner or fiddled much with anything USB, so i don't know how useful i'll be.

 

How is your hdd divided up, partition-wise? Do you have separate partitions for /, /swap, /var, /tmp, /usr etc?

 

If the mp3s reside in /usr, you might be able to do a skeletal windows install in one of the other partitions (assuming they are big enough) and leave the mp3s intact. Windows (what ver, btw?) will see the partition, but it won't be able to access any data on it.

Booting off a livecd (a la knoppix or most any linux rescue cd) should allow you to access both partitions. You should be able to move all your mp3s over to the Windows partition that way, and reboot.

 

Then, you can blow away, format and/or merge your hdd into a Windows System directory and Windows Applications directory.

 

Or you can hook up your schnazzy CDRW to make a copy of your mp3s, and blow away the whole hdd and install windows as normally.

 

*however*, here are some gotchas:

 

if your hdd is hacked up into a bunch of partitions, the /usr might be an "extended" partition of another (partitions 5 and up are usually virtual slices of partition 4. It's done this way for compatibility reasons and BIOSes suck). In other words, its existence may depend on the existence of partition #4. Check with your local expert.

 

Linux can read Microsoft NTFS just dandy. Writing to it is different. Some implementations can write to NTFS with a good possibility of data corruption. Other implementations will only mount NTFS read-only. If you create a temporary windows installation, make it win9x or winME so that it is Fat32.

 

Oh what fun!

[AudioMaverick]

I'm with Phaeton on this... Of the options available to you, I'd go for burning CDs of your MP3s. If you don't have backups, yet, this is a good time to make some.

 

If your budget allows, this would also be a good time to try and catch one of those "Circuit City" or Best Buy" deals on a new HDD. It is easy to get 80GB to 120GB for $50 (sometimes with mail-in rebates). You could then just pull your Linux 10GB HDD and store it as an emergency backup drive.

 

By the way... I have personally decided to not install XP onto anything slower than 600MHz and 256MB of RAM. Since Microsoft has dropped "Critical Update" support for win9x/ME/2K (2K Enterprise is supported), I am migrating over to a Linux server to replace the "Windows 2000" server I shut down a few days ago. If the PC isn't going ontot he internet, you'll be OK.

 

Good luck on your data transfer...