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I recently installed Ubuntu (full Ubuntu, not a persistent Ubuntu) on an external 1 TB Hard disk.

While doing so, I had the hard disk formatted to ext4 journaling file system. The OS works on the hard disk, and is completely readable within the Ubuntu system. However, the hard disk is not readable anymore on Windows systems (tested with two Windows systems). Is it because I changed the file system?

How do I reformat the hard disk if it's not getting detected by Windows (actually, the device starts up, and shows up under 'safely remove hardware' --but it's not showing under 'This PC')?

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Try using the disk management snap-in under administrative tools to reformat if you wish. The problem is Ubuntu can read the NTFS file system but Windows does not natively read the Ext4 file system. You can gain limited support in Windows for Ext4 by installing something like Ext2Fsd.

You probably just want to partition a portion of the disk with NTFS, then install Ubuntu. Or you can boot into Ubuntu and use something like GParted to resize the Linux partition, leaving space for a NTFS partition. Then format the empty space to NTFS.

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  • Ext2Fsd has been creating lots of problems lately. If used it may render the Ubuntu installed in the external HDD unbootable and requiring error correction.
    – user772515
    Commented Feb 6, 2018 at 17:28

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