Re: Writing File System Device Driver & Creating Virtual Disk Drive in Windows XP [Question by a Novice]

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"Ashish13" <ashishbagate13@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1168198957.922279.160090@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
First of all thanks to Don Burn for help.

Actually for more clear understanding I put our idea in different
words.

Our minimal goals are
1. Able to give only *read* access to say Reiser file system from
windows
2. Try to show these reiserFS partitions in windows explorer for easy
browsing [this is where disk drive will come into picture]


*****What we have now
1. We already have coded file system recogniser [by reading partition
tables n then magic strings-- this required Raw access to HDD]

Anything using this approach is a hack, the File System Recognizer follows
a specific format.

2. Coding for ReiserFS read i.e. traversing ReiserFS tree, retrieving
data from direct and indirect items is under progress and we will
complete in coming 10 to 15 days.

Again, doing this is user space is not going to give you a "file system",
just a hack

****What we dont know
1. how to show those reiserFS partitions in Windows Explorer as drive
for easy browsing
[one analogy ::
when we install nokia PC suite for Series 60 phones, and connect phone
to PC,
we can see phone memory as a disk drive in windows explorer,
and then we can copy paste data between phone and PC.]

The phone appears because underneath it is a volume and on top of that a
file system (FAT I believe). You can do a shell extension, but that will
not allow applications to do anything, only the shell.

2. even if we show reiserFS partition in windows explorer as a drive,
how our read call will be called when user tries to browse through this

drive?

You cannot do this without a file system (and a proper file system
recognizer) these are not user space components but kernel componentds.

3. thus the main question is what should we do in order to achieve
above result?
***How to show partitions in windows explorer?
***Do we have to write a file system driver to interface our read call,

with windows explorer clicks?

Bottom line, throw our you code, start reading about file systems. You can
have a read-only file system which does make things easier, but not a lot.
Basically if you are really good and lucky you have 6+ months, but more
likely 12 to 18 months till you have a solid product.


--
Don Burn (MVP, Windows DDK)
Windows 2k/XP/2k3 Filesystem and Driver Consulting
http://www.windrvr.com
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