The EXT2 or second extended file system is a file system for the Linux kernel. It was initially designed as a replacement for the extended file system. It is fast enough that it is used as the benchmarking standard. Its main drawback is that it is not a journaling file system. Its successor, EXT3, is a journalled file system and is almost completely compatible with EXT2.

"Standard'' EXT2 file system features
The EXT2 file system supports standard Unix file types: regular files, directories, device special files and symbolic links.

EXT2 file system is able to manage file systems created on really big partitions. While the original kernel code restricted the maximal file system size to 2 GB, recent work in the VFS layer have raised this limit to 4 TB. Thus, it is now possible to use big disks without the need of creating many partitions.

EXT2 file system provides long file names. It uses variable length directory entries. The maximal file name size is 255 characters. This limit could be extended to 1012 if needed.

EXT2 file system reserves some blocks for the super user (root). Normally, 5% of the blocks are reserved. This allows the administrator to recover easily from situations where user processes fill up file systems.

Data Recovery Wizard Professional can easily recover deleted, lost and inaccessible files or folders from EXT2 partition.

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