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I am going to have a dualboot installation of Ubuntu and Windows 7.

The thing is I'm not sure if windows or its applications can have access to my Ubuntu partitions and its data (in normal way, without install such things like ext2fsd).

Let's say my windows gets infected, is it harmful for my data at ubuntu partitions? Can infected windows make any changes or have any effects on my installation of Ubuntu or its data?
If they can, so i should install windows in Virtualbox.

EDIT:
This question has nothing to do with opening ubuntu partitions and accessing its files from windows, It's a security concern. I want to make sure that windows doesn't have any access to my ubuntu data.

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2 Answers 2

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Ubuntu needs to boot from an ext* or a set of other, less popular file system, usually you use ext4. You can add another data partition in either NTFS or e.g. FAT32 that are visible to Windows and place files there that should be accessible from both systems.

However if you don't want that Windows is able to affect any Ubuntu data, just leave its default configuration with all file systems as ext4. Windows will see that there are partitions, but not detect any valid file systems in them and therefore can't access any data.

This does not prevent it from accessing the raw partitions though. You or a clever malware can still format the Ubuntu partitions from Windows or delete and/or repartition them, which all destroys the Ubuntu installation.

Windows also can (and automatically does e.g. on system upgrades) overwrite the disk's boot record. That means your computer will not boot into GRUB any more, but into the default Windows loader or anything else. You can easily fix this by booting an Ubuntu live system from DVD or USB device and reinstall GRUB.

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  • You don't have to boot from ext* file systems, you can also boot from btrfs and some other file systems.
    – wb9688
    Nov 5, 2015 at 18:58
  • @wb9688 You're right, but I was not sure and couldn't find a list of them after a quick search... Edited that.
    – Byte Commander
    Nov 5, 2015 at 19:07
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If you do not install ubuntu on a fs than natively supported by Windows (ntfs, vfat, ...) there is no way for Windows to directly access the data on the partition linux.

So if you install on ext4 and xfs there are no problems.

This however does not guarantee that in case of infection of other parts of the disk, such as the malware affecting the MBR

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