linux&win share partition, disable write-cache?

[Tony Prawiro]

of course each thunderbird has its own default mail folder

i forgotten to mention that i manually moved the mail folder of both thunderbirds into same partition:

linux thunderbird data dir to /mnt/hda9/mails (i created a symlink of .thunderbird/blahblahblah/theMailFolder to /mnt/hda9/mails)

windows thunderbird data folder to D:\mails

my aim is i want to receive emails both from windows and linux into the exactly same folder so my mails are integrated into  single partition, single directory.

imho yes, it is some sort of write-cache issue. i imagined that both OS is actually trying to write the same partition/file at the same time... and that's not just happened in this case.

another case: 

i tried to "touch" a new file to /mnt/hda9/ directory and the new file won't visible by windows. i have to dismount and remount the partition again (using Computer Management : remove drive letter, then assign a new drive letter again) so the file visible by windows.

Thank you.



Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 15:29:39 +0800
From: Edward Dekkers <edward at tripled.iinet.net.au>
Subject: Re: linux&win share partition, disable write-cache?
To: Tony Prawiro <tonyprawiro at gmail.com>,	For users of Fedora Core
	releases <fedora-list at redhat.com>
Message-ID: <4281B463.6070708 at tripled.iinet.net.au>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Tony Prawiro wrote:

>> dear linuxers,
>> 
>> i have winxp home and core three installed on my laptop as dual boot;
>> and i frequently switch from one into another and vice versa using
>> hibernate.
>> 
>> so i frequently hibernate my windows, then boot into linux, and then
>> hibernate linux, and then resume into windows, and so on that the
>> cycle repeated several times a day until i rebooted them...
>> 
>> my problem is, i want both operating systems to access (read/write)
>> the same partition (let's call it D: or /dev/hda9, the point is they
>> are the same). but as i have experienced, this will corrupt my data at
>> the partition when i switched operating system.
>> 
>> to make things more clearly, the case is, i'm using thunderbird e-mail
>> client both at windows and linux. i stored windows thunderbird mail
>> folder to D:\mails and i stored linux thunderbird mail folder to
>> /dev/hda9/mails. when i receive new mails from linux thunderbird, all
>> seems okay. but when i hibernate my linux and switched into windows,
>> thunderbird windows complains there is a file corrupt and suggests me
>> to run chkdsk utility. and you can guess, chkdsk truncated my inbox
>> and my mails are gone.
>> 
>> i realized that sharing a partition for 2 OS is a bad practice. but is
>> there really no solution? how about disabling write-cache on both OS?
>> is it possible to "disable write-cache just for selected partition" ?
>> how to do that in fedora?
>> 
>> thank you for any solution, opinion, or idea.
>> 
>  
>

>Is that even the answer?
>
>Do Linux and Windows Thunderbird share the exact same mailbox & 
>configuration data?
>
>I don't think so. I really don't think this is a write cache issue.
>
>You need to speak to mozilla regarding the differences and see if you 
>can work around it.
>
>Regards,
>Ed.