Hiding a partition?

[Entity_Razer]

I wanna make a partition on a computer off which some software will be running/ will be stored.

Now this will contain data, personal data and such I do not want other people to see.

So I'm looking for something so I can hide a partition without it being obvius a partition is missing.

I know in Linux you "just" unmount it but that kite won't fly in windows.

So, is there any way I can do this?

Preferably doing this outside windows, so like you run a program, it hides the partiition, you close the prog.

As long as the program isn't run again, the partion is un seeable.

Now when you run the program again and select "un-hide partition" then I wanna be able to see the partition.

But also, this partition will be "used" by multiple users on a computer. (Windows XP pro btw)

there won't be anything illegal or something on it it's just a LOT of personal data and also some programs that need to run in the background but that I want cannot be accesed.


Could you folks help me out?

thanks in advance

[jjcom]

Hiding a partion...mmmm...When I installed (alright tried to install) OpenBSD it had options for something like hidden x (where x is whatever partion you want) no idea if this will work tho...

I'm not sure if you can just hide a partion from Windows...I once had a hard drive the size of ~500mb have something like a gig and a half worth of paritons on it. lol Windows and Linux...Fdisk didn't see my partion made in Linux so it just made another one over it...look at it using a newer version of Fdisk and it showed them all lol. Now that I think of it that HD died...

jjcom

[sllywhtboy]

at work, we hide drives from windows explorer, my computer, etc. for other plant-level machines. we do all kinds of lockdowns on top of that.

so look into windows XP desktop policies.

--slly

[Entity_Razer]

And where do I find that? :s

It's for my home computer. But people like my mother, sisters can acces it also and I can't put a password on it because then someone gets upset and such bs (although it is MY computer none the less)

So where do I find this?

Desktop policies ,is that a part of the "users"-related things? (different account different rights etc)

[jikdoc]

desktop policy is part of the group policy editor, it's like tweakUI on steroids.

start -> run -> gpedit.msc

i personally used partition magic to hide my emergency boot drive. it might be possible to do it from device manager -> disk drive

i think you want something other than hiding the partition. if the people sharing your windows partition aren't very computer savvy, simply changing the folders attributes of the folders you want hidden will do the trick. you will then have to check view hidden files option in folder options of any open explorer window. another option is to place a shortcut to the hidden folder somewhere else.

[del_fuego]

Try Tweak-XP. It has some options to hide drives/partitions from explorer (windows explorer not IE). All that you do is tick/untick the partitions you want to hide/show then reboot. Partition Magic 8 will do it too from within Windows or from dos with a floppy - Boot up with floppy - hide partition - save - reboot - voila, partition gone. Tweak-XP is much easier imo.

Hope this helps, dEl.

[jikdoc]

i'd like to stress that i don't think hiding a partition is what you're after. it's going to be a pain accessing those files if you actually hide your partition from the os.

[jjcom]

yeah, maybe a password protected file, you can buy software that encrpts a zip archive. WinZip does such a thing I believe, not really super secure, but if your only trying to keep family members out of stuff it should be fine.

jjcom

[bxa121]

you ca encrypt HD's too, tho ive never done that myself.

[sllywhtboy]

Desktop policies ,is that a part of the "users"-related things? (different account different rights etc)

there are machine policies and user policies. machine policies trancend user policies. user policies are user-specific. so we can lock down our every-day users but our administrative IDs can still get in & fix/change things when needed.

--slly

[Entity_Razer]

yhea btw,if anyone knows some free encryption program pls let me know :)

btw partition magic did the trick :)

thx folks

[Der_KHAN]

another, quicker way would be running "diskmgmt.msc" and removing the drive letter
which is the same as un-mounting in unix

but this method (as well as the part.magic way) will not allow your apps to acces the hidden partitions.

you should specify file permissions that dont allow users to access other ppls data
(select a file/folder-> right click->properties->security)


p.s. windows features a free file encryption tool:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308989]

just make sure to back up the file encryption certificate:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;241201