hey, in case you can't tell, I am a bit excited to get my new laptop all put together.

anyway, I was wondering if there was a way of partitioning a drive, that would have programs and files in it, such that only one user account could access it? so, if I had programs and or files that I didn't want Joe Anybody seeing, I could make it so upon login (where they would have to log on as a guest) the partition with the stuff I want to hide would not be accessible, or even visible.

can that be done? I figured that since I was putting a brand new hard drive in my laptop, and installing student winXP, I should probably partition it before I install loads of crap =].

one more thing, does anyone know how secure login passwords are? i.e. how long it would take someone to crack/bypass one?

one more thing, does anyone know how secure login passwords are? i.e. how long it would take someone to crack/bypass one?
you can secure passwords by using upper and lower case letters
and by combining numbers with it
don't use anything obvious and change your password every 4 to 6 weeks

a user pasword in winxp(most windows' actually) is pointless, as anyone with 3 brain cells can get into your users files without using any hacks at all. all they need is their own or a guest account to access the comp using windows. either that or a copy of something like mandrakemove.

Windows XP is relatively easy to hash. Secure O/S's are the topic of much talk right now. If you have data which you want to be portable but protected, use a third party encryption program and removable storage; 2048 bit strength is available presently.

so if I install the files/programs on a removable disk (like an external HDD), how much more secure would it be? furthermore, if I decide I don't really need to protect against hackers, but just from snoops is it possible to make a drive partition only visible to one user? i.e. me.

You can hide drive letters from windows, but it'd be a hassle to access. Also remember that only one partition can be subdivided with most O/Ss and HDDs... and anyone with access to your bios will know what your drive sizes really are anyway. Sorry, I can't answer your question more directly!

Enjoy and Beware

if the computer has a zip drive then store your files on that

if not then you can compress your files and encrypt them at the same time
the compressed folder will still be visible but it cannot be decrypted without the password

zip drive =/ who has/wants a zip drive ;) besides, that does nothing for programs.

just get a portable harddrive with a USB connection, for quite some time i was running programs off mine as i switched between computers.

This is a really good question Cato. I know exactly what you are trying to do. It seems like you should be able to go to 'computer management' and alter a few permissions under the "Local users and groups" category to hide the partition, but I'm making a wild guess.

Something that you should consider Re: security- how is the potential cracker going to know to compromise your hidden drive if he doesn't know it's there? Lets say the original HD is 40 gigs, so you partition and turn it into a 30 gig w/hidden 10 gig partition. Everybody else (any other user account) that could potentially log in and use your computer is going to think that you have a 30 gig hard drive.


Of course, if your laptop is stolen, that's a whole different ballgame---the thief hopefully knows how to get around whatever bios password you've created as bios would be the only way to tell the true size of your HD. The thief would then need to find a way to crack the administrator's account.
It's a laptop hard drive, so the thief would have no way of simply slaving out the drive or anything like that.

The only easy method I could think of to get around the hidden drive/user account problem would be to format/clean install C: (which would leave the old data on D: intact)--- buuuut------

Something you could do to fix all of your problems simultaneously is to make a multi-boot Windows XP/Linux computer, and set it up in such a way that it runs windows by default, and there is no multiboot prompt. Basicly, it would look like you have a *whatever* gig drive with unformatted space. You would then set up the linux partitioon to be hidden to all user accounts.
To access your hidden partition, you could alter the multiboot timeout during runtime------when you rebooted, the option to 'boot to your linux distro' would be there, and when you finiished, you set the timeout back to 0 again.

Assuming a saavy thief stole your computer if it was set up like this, then even if he looked in bios and saw the hard drive's actual size, or attempted to clean install windows, it would always appear to be unpartitioned/unused space. If the thief opts to create a partion/format the unused space, it will destroy the data.

....and what if the thief tries to install linux LOL? I'm not sure where to go from here.

For a linux system I know exactly what I would do. I would set up a crypto loop mount drive image file. Give the file some inocuous sounding name, like, oh say data.old and hide it in plain site with with some other boring files in an out of the way place on your hd. And I'd use 256 bit encryption. When such a file is mounted (requires a password word which can be pretty much as large as you want) it looks like a drive that you can access like any other. Unmounted, it's basically a gig or two of 256 bit encrypted garbage. Yes, the NSA could likely read it, but they average looky loo doesn't stand a snowballs chance. ;)

Scramdisk This is a program that allows the creation and use of virtual encrypted drives. Basically, you create a container file on an existing hard drive which is created with a specific password. This container can then be mounted by the Scramdisk software which creates a new drive letter to represent the drive. The virtual drive can then only be accessed with the correct passphrase. Without the correct passphrase the files on the virtual drive are totally inaccessible. Way Cool! Here's the link for the Manual
http://www.sover.net/~wysiwygx/Security2.html


edit
Stealth Folder is a Freeware utility. With Stealth Folder you will be able to hide any folder in your PC. Stealth folder is password protected.
Operating System: Win98/Millennium/NT40/2000.
http://www.sover.net/~wysiwygx/Security2.html

i hope these programs help

I decided not to partition it anyway, but thanks for the help.