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I'm trying to make a partition on my Raspberry Pi SD card that allows me to access it from a Windows system as well as from linux. How I've to proceed?

For example: On my SD card with 8GB I've 4GB used by the Raspbian partition and i want to create another partition with 4GB where I want to put files with Windows and the SD card conected to the PC (Who appears as a drive connected to the pc) and use this files also with the raspbian system.

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Format the second partition as FAT32 and you're set. Kinda...

You'll probably want to use a large boot partition (first partition). See below.

Windows is weird about partitions on removable media, you may need to use the raspberry's boot partiton as your cross platform partition as the raspberry only boots from the first partition, and Windows will only allow access to the first partition... (unless you hack the disk driver inf file or something like that)

Luckily the boot partition must be FAT32. So windows won't have any problem reading and writing to it. Just be careful not to clobber your boot files...

[Edit]

I use Arch Linux ARM on my Raspberries, I like the flexibility and ease of install. If you want a Windows compatible partition that just works, try this: Boot a Linux live CD or use a Linux system.

Partition the SD Card from a machine like this: Parition Table: MS-DOS MBR Partition 1: 1GB FAT32 Partition 2: 7GB(remaining) BTRFS

Download Arch Linux ARM for the Pi Raspberry Pi: http://archlinuxarm.org/os/ArchLinuxARM-rpi-latest.tar.gz Raspberry Pi 2: http://archlinuxarm.org/os/ArchLinuxARM-rpi-2-latest.tar.gz

Mount the second partition, create the boot directory, then mount the first partition as the created boot directory.

Then untar the downloaded file to the root of the SD Card's second partition.

Modify the cmdline.txt file like this:

root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rw rootwait rootfstype=btrfs rootflags=rw,relatime,ssd_spread,space_cache console=ttyAMA0,115200 console=tty1 selinux=0 plymouth.enable=0 msc95xx.turbo_mode=N dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 kgdboc=ttyAMA0,115200 elevator=noop

Then boot the Pi from the SD Card ans you're set to configure the system from there.

Windows should also auto mount the first partition (this boot partition) and you should be able to read and write files there.

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  • Welcome to the Raspberry Pi part of the Stack Exchange network. Do you have any experience of doing this (having a second partition on the SD card also with a 'Doze compatible - FAT type file-system)?
    – SlySven
    Feb 22, 2016 at 18:07
  • Yes, I have experience with multiple partitions, but making Windows correctly handle the secondary partition takes a non-trivial approach. I've had the most success by hacking/reprogramming the firmware of a USB sdcard reader to present itself as a USB Hard Disk, which WIndows will treat like any other disk.
    – Hydranix
    Feb 25, 2016 at 7:48
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For accessing Raspbian's file system on Windows, I like to use the free Paragon EXTFS for Windows (no sponsorship, personal choice).

For accessing another partition on Raspbian you simply need to look for the correct partition in /dev directory (ex. /dev/mmcblk0p2, mmcblk0 represents the built-in SD card, p2 denotes the partition) and mount it using the command sudo mount /dev/partitionName /path/to/folder

Take note that there are cases that it shows up as /dev/sdXY where X is the device letter and Y is the partition number on the device.

Also take note that you may need third-party tools to properly create another partition on Windows. Linux can handle it on its own.

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    Looks like their software is no longer available. All they have is a "Contact Us" form on their website. That means they're harvesting emails and probably charing an arm and a leg, if it even exists. Aug 22, 2018 at 23:43

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