how to disable access to partition?

[Guest]

i have a hdd with two partitions on it: one used for win vista and the rest
used for data. on the same pc i have also some other hdds with data and win
xp pro instalation (primary system for now). win xp doesn't go along with
vista and vice versa. in vista i disabled the access to hdd with xp folder
and program folder (almost no problem here because i have no need to use
them under vista, and vista can't damage xp (never happened yet, but some
corruption/impossible to delete files happened)). it's more difficult with xp
config - i don't want to cut access to the whole hdd with vista folder (vista
partition takes 80gb and the data partition is ~160gb so i'd like to keep it
available for both systems), but it's a grave pain when xp erases/corrupts
vista partition and makes me reinstal windows vista just when it looks/works
nice.
is there a way to make a "linux" trick to unmount a partition under windows
xp so the system can't access it any more (untill i mount it back up) - the
perfect situation would be if vista run other file system, but this is not
the case. i don't need a boot manager (systems to be aware of each other
existence) to run a system from boot menu (just the bios f8 boot disk menu
works ok for me with no risk of grounding any of my os).

 

[peter]

I had Vista setup as a dual boot with XP home.2 HD with 3partitions
each...one for the OS one for programs and one for saved work.XP was
installed first and then Vista....which automatically setup a dual boot and
I have the choice of which OS to start with.
All of the programs that I used under Vista are on the Vista HD and all of
the Programs that I used under XP are on the XP HD.
If I started with Vista it named the HD it was on the C drive if I started
with XP it named the drive it was on the C drive.
I ran this way for aprox 2 months................and not once did XP
interfere with Vista or Vice Versa.
Under Defrag/chkdsk/Virus scans/etc I setup each one to do only its own
HD.....eg The XP defrag only defragged the XP drive.

The only reason I gave it up was to run Vista 64bit on another system.
I fail to see your problem .............
peter

 

[Guest]

i have my xp on the partition located on raid 0 matrix of hdds -
nforce4/a64, all partitions are ntfs, vista resides on regular sata drive -
non raid (beta 2 did not see raid hdd during setup, but after the setup and
following the raid driver instalation it found the way to do some mess
(nothing serious), newer release 5474 (or so) had no problems finding raid
drives and looking for raid drivers during the setup, but my previous
experience kept me from making these hdd visible to vista (xp is my primary
system and the stakes are too high), anyhow, -as i had said - bios f8 boot
menu (no need to restart, does not change default settings) works as good as
os bootmenu, so this is not an issue). funny thing is that even the way vista
accesses video card may can interfere with video card settings in xp - at
least ati tool kept crying that video card has changed and it could not load
hardware profiles (i had to restart xp to get it straight again). as you can
see my vista setup does its own things.
still you mentioned something that may help me a little - it seems like
preceeding any problem there was chkdsk boot check (took long time, "fixed"
plenty of indexes and so on. for my last vista setup after such a check/fix
the vista windows catalog became empty (all other folders on the same
partition were ok, but i can't access some system folders like local
settings, document and settings, etc), but later - after next chkdsk run,
files in windows folder had shown back up). i have no antivirus on any
system, did not run defrag (though oo defrag service is running on xp, so i
can't say this for 100%), turned off indexing service for all drives (though
maybe too late).
one more thing that i may try is this chkdsk and defrag settings - where
exactly do you change behavior for them so chkdsk would never run on my vista
partition (i checked all the options but found none to be applicable)?
similarly do you know how to restrict disk cleanup and simple emptying of
recycle bin from being applicable to vista partition as well?
aftter all this, i still think that the simple solution that makes it
impossible for one system to access another system's partition (but not
necessarily the whole multipartition hdd) would be the best.
does anybody have an idea how to?

 

[Guest]

hmm?, i have thought about this in the past as well. But i could only come
up with a couple of possible ideas.

One would be to altering the cmos and disable the appropriate drive. But
the problem was the frequent accessing of the cmos which is inconvenient and
two, the boot drive cannot be disable.

The other was to use an encrypting software that can encrypt an entire
partition and or unmount it. This would surely prevent either o.s. to
recognize the other if either is unmounted. And though my encrpting software
claims to be able to do this, i have hesitated with experimenting.

I think what would really be helpful is to have a third drive that has the
booting information but no o.s. on it. That way if using the cmos to
unrecognize an hd or if you unmount a hd via software, you can apply these
methods to an entire hd with their o.s's and exclude a boot drive......

But these are only some ideas i've been flirting with.......

 

[Guest]

Disbling drive in CMOS is not a option for the practicality sake and also
because I’d lose access to any partition located on it (beside the system
partition). I used the disable option it vista device manager in relation to
a controller (to keep vista from messing with xp partition), but this time
I’d like to limit the results only to one partition and not the whole drive.
Full partition encryption would work only if it was integrated with the
system all the way down to the boot process. Effectively this would be
similar to formatting partition with file system not visible to xp, but I
don’t know of such possibility.
Your idea with third drive would work if there was a way to put vista boot
files on it (no problem, vista did it without even asking me, only because
sata drive with vista partition was on 4th channel and there was a hdd in
front of it on 3rd sata channel) and at the same time make it aware of
drivers (software) necessary to read the encrypted drive.
Any help with peter’s suggestion on configuring chkdsk to access/check only
designated partitions at boot time – where/what file to edit?

 

[Guest]

done some homework on chkdsk - to change default boot behavior use
Chkntfs.exe from cmd (Chkntfs.exe /? for help).
more on chkdsk at
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/reskit/c28621675.mspx

 

[peter]

Indexing under XP was turned off for the Vista drive and I set Vista not to
index the XP drive...
As for your Video card.........I use an Nvidea card but that problem never
came up.
I assume that you have ATI Vista drivers installed under the Vista /program
files ..
Are your video settings the same for both Vista and XP??.........just
guessing really
Glad you found how to change the rest......
wish you luck sorry I could not help further
peter

 

[Guest]

Sorry for that, i thought i read you had vista on one drive and the other o.s
on another hd.....

I put myself at odds with others because I don't beleive that placing two
o.s.'s on one drive is a good idea...

Myself, I have 2 drives each with there own o.s... And I guess the
suggestion I made was based on my preconception (or perception).....

 

[Guest]

video settings are the same but the clock is different - use atitool to load
2d and 3d profiles, anyway video card issues are just icing on the cake.
almost got my vista running yesterday - after rebuilding mbr and setting up
boot files on vista partition. almost, but it never fully loaded the system -
after the login prompt the only application able to start was task manager
(blue desktop, no taskbar). there were constant popping message windows about
courrupted files in system32 directory - no shortcuts back in time.
i'll try to set it up once again applying all the restrictions (i'm aware
of) to both systems. maybe i'll create the common boot manager as the new
release of vista handles sata raid driver ok and boot partition is not xp
system drive.