Samba shares

Run as root:

mount -t smbfs -o fmask=444,dmask=555,iocharset=utf8,guest  //server/share /path/to/mount-point

This create a read-only share, for all users, including root.

Example:

mount -t smbfs -o fmask=444,dmask=555,iocharset=utf8,guest  //ariadne/videos /tmp/rapoldinet

Explanation:
fmask=444 gives owner, group and other read permissions
dmask=555 gives owner, group and other read and execute permissions for directories
guest mounts the share without any authentication.
iocharset=utf8 this is because Windows uses Unicode for their filesystem since Windows 2000. This way you are able to use special characters abroad ASCII in your filenames without running into problems.

Accessing my Linux partition from Windows

There are some utilities like:
* ext2fsd
* explore2fs that allow you to make the job.

Recovering lost files

Just for the future:

There is a utility called libtrash. This is a wrapper library (LD_PRELOAD hack) around the system calls which Linux uses when deleting files, and which moves them to a configurable location instead.


However, if the damage is done:

It might be easy but it might be as well impossible to recover the lost files. One should for heaven's sake not unmount and re-mount the partition (that is, not reboot!).

If there is still any process running which holds the specific file open, then you're lucky and just copy the file descriptor from the /proc directory.
Here's a guide for that:
http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/10/30/1652211

There are utilities for ext2 based file systems. One is called recover, and one e2undel. But you need to remember some informations about the files. And it won't work with ext3...

Also, depending on file type you might want to try "forensic utilities". These scan the whole partition for "magic bytes"/headers of known filetypes and *try* to restore them.
* Magic Rescue
* foremost
* The Coroner's toolkit
* PhotoRec (this claims even to recover from USBs, and memory cards).
* probably others...