How to hide an HD from the administrator of another OS?

[Dmitriy Kopnichev]

Hello
How to hide an HD with installed Windows XP Pro from the administrator of a
Windows 2000 Pro installed on another HD in a double boot system? Or how to
hide the contents of the Windows XP HD from the administrator? Or how to
make the contents inaccessible?

 

[Roger Abell]

Ultimately this is not something that can be done.
An admin can find a way to access it no matter how
you have tried to make it inaccessible.
You could consider using EFS encryption in XP to
make selected content unavailable to any account
except the encrypting account, and with a small
amount more effort you could do the same in W2k.

 

[Crusty \(-: Old B@stard :-\)]

Put the drive in a "lockable" drive carrier. When done using the system,
lock the drive and pocket the key. If he is determined, he will still be
able to use your drive, unless you removed it and took it with you.

 

[Dmitriy Kopnichev]

Thanks for your reply.
I encrypted all folders in the root of the Windows XP HD with EFS, but the
Windows 2000 Administrator can open them.

 

[Dmitriy Kopnichev]

If I remove the Windows XP HD and took it with me, an error about the NTLDR
file not being available will appear when the Windows 2000 Administrator
will try to boot Windows 2000.

 

[Mike Hall]

This is what comes of trying to be sneaky.. lol

 

[Dmitriy Kopnichev]

If I lock the drive other won't be able to boot windows 2000 because the
ntldr not being available error. How to boot the windows 2000 without the
Windows XP drive? I want to disable the Windows XP drive in BIOS
temporarily.

 

[Kent W. England [MVP]]

Install BootItNG and give it an admin password, put an admin password on
the BIOS, and then use BING to remove the XP partition from the master
boot record when booting 2K. Disable the ability of the BIOS to allow
alternate boot devices without entering BIOS and then set the BIOS to
boot from hard disk first. (This last step depends on the vendor. Dell
BIOS allows you to remove F12 option from BIOS boot.)

I think that would work pretty well. For a couple of days, at least.

 

[Roger Abell]

Interesting post Kent. This is industrious to the point
of being devious <g>. I just would not want to switch
boots too frequently . I will opt for an external Scsi
drive I can lock away.

 

[Dmitriy Kopnichev]

Hello
Thanks for your reply.
I'm going to disable the Windows XP HD in BIOS temporarily. Will BING
prevent the error about the NTLDR file not being available when booting
Windows 2K with the Windows XP HD disabled? Will I be able to boot Windows
XP normally after enabling the Windows XP HD in BIOS?

 

[Dmitriy Kopnichev]

How to prevent the error about the NTLDR file not being available when
booting Windows 2K with the Windows XP HD disabled using BING?

 

[I'm Dan]

It sounds like you probably used the wrong dualboot method when you
installed your OS's. Kent's idea is very good, but it won't work if you
installed your dualboot using the Microsoft method, which it sounds like
you must have done.

Multiboot methods fall into two general categories: the Microsoft way
and everyone else's way. The two methods use incompatible concepts and
cannot simply be substituted for one another. In a nutshell, the
Microsoft way intertwines the OS's by always booting through the same
partition and then forking to one or another operating system on
different drive letters, while the third-party boot managers keep OS's
totally independent and truly boot separate partitions as alternate "C:"
partitions.

The MS way intertwines the OS's and uses boot.ini to define the
available OS's in the boot menu. The third-party way does not
intertwine OS's and uses a separate boot manager, not the boot.ini file.
Since the third-party way doesn't intertwine OS's, it's easy to
completely hide or remove one OS while the other is booted, as Kent's
plan does. If you're using the MS boot loader (ntldr and boot.ini), you
can't do that.

You can't mix the methods by installing your OS's with MS's intertwining
(as you've done) and then try to use a third-party boot manager like
BootIt NG. So if you want to use Kent's technique you're going to have
to remove the second OS, restore/repair the first OS to single-boot
status, then reinstall the second OS using BootIt NG instead.

 

[Dmitriy Kopnichev]

Thanks for your reply!
Yes. I installed my dualboot using the Microsoft method.
Can't I copy all needed for Windows 2000 files from c: to d: drive, so I
would be able to boot the Windows 2000 with Windows XP HD disabled?

 

[Guest]

Try Tweak UI installed in Win2K and look in the My Computer section, there you can uncheck the boxes for drives you do not wish the administrator of the Win"K OS to see

 

[I'm Dan]

I've never had that work reliably ... but then I rarely use the MS
method myself, and eschew it like the plague because there are better
and more reliable ways of dualbooting. Most of my experience with it is
trying to clean up after it on the computers of clients and friends.

You reveal in your parallel thread in m.p.w.general that your goal is to
keep your IT administrator in the dark. Without getting into the wisdom
(or folly) of that, I think reinstalling and using Kent's plan would be
ideal. Kent's plan would leave each OS booting up as "C:" and the
alternate partition would not even show up in the partition table. If
Win2000 boots up as C: and the XP partition doesn't show up with a drive
letter, doesn't show up in "Disk Management" (not even as "Unknown"
space), and doesn't show up in the partition table, the IT guy wouldn't
know it was even there. IIRC, you can even configure BootIt NG to hide
the boot menu unless you press a hotkey during bootup. That way the
computer would boot straight into 2000 if the IT guy happens to reboot
your computer, thereby hiding all tracks that you are dualbooting.

 

[Dmitriy Kopnichev]

Smart idea!

Try Tweak UI installed in Win2K and look in the My Computer section, there

you can uncheck the boxes for drives you do not wish the administrator of
the Win"K OS to see

 

[Dmitriy Kopnichev]

Thanks!

I've never had that work reliably ... but then I rarely use the MS
method myself, and eschew it like the plague because there are better
and more reliable ways of dualbooting. Most of my experience with it is
trying to clean up after it on the computers of clients and friends.

You reveal in your parallel thread in m.p.w.general that your goal is to
keep your IT administrator in the dark. Without getting into the wisdom
(or folly) of that, I think reinstalling and using Kent's plan would be
ideal. Kent's plan would leave each OS booting up as "C:" and the
alternate partition would not even show up in the partition table. If
Win2000 boots up as C: and the XP partition doesn't show up with a drive
letter, doesn't show up in "Disk Management" (not even as "Unknown"
space), and doesn't show up in the partition table, the IT guy wouldn't
know it was even there. IIRC, you can even configure BootIt NG to hide
the boot menu unless you press a hotkey during bootup. That way the
computer would boot straight into 2000 if the IT guy happens to reboot
your computer, thereby hiding all tracks that you are dualbooting.

 

[Dmitriy Kopnichev]

Is BootIt NG free?

I've never had that work reliably ... but then I rarely use the MS
method myself, and eschew it like the plague because there are better
and more reliable ways of dualbooting. Most of my experience with it is
trying to clean up after it on the computers of clients and friends.

You reveal in your parallel thread in m.p.w.general that your goal is to
keep your IT administrator in the dark. Without getting into the wisdom
(or folly) of that, I think reinstalling and using Kent's plan would be
ideal. Kent's plan would leave each OS booting up as "C:" and the
alternate partition would not even show up in the partition table. If
Win2000 boots up as C: and the XP partition doesn't show up with a drive
letter, doesn't show up in "Disk Management" (not even as "Unknown"
space), and doesn't show up in the partition table, the IT guy wouldn't
know it was even there. IIRC, you can even configure BootIt NG to hide
the boot menu unless you press a hotkey during bootup. That way the
computer would boot straight into 2000 if the IT guy happens to reboot
your computer, thereby hiding all tracks that you are dualbooting.

 

[I'm Dan]

No, but it's very well-priced -- $35 shareware, 30-day free
fully-functional trial, no crippleware. You get a partitioning tool
(ala, PartitionMagic), imaging tool (ala, Ghost or DriveImage), and a
top-notch boot manager -- three tools that would cost a lot more if you
bought them separately. User documentation is not the greatest, but
support is good. See www.bootitng.com for tutorials and more details.

 

[Crusty \(-: Old B@stard :-\)]

Funny! I do it all the time without any problem whatsoever! It's all about
HOW you set up your dual boot friend!