Hide a drive....

Have you got some sensitive information or apps that you don't want other people who might access your computer to see? Put them all on one drive and then hide the drive!

Follow these steps:

1. Launch the Registry Editor (Regedit.exe).

2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer.

3. Right-click the Servers key, and select New | DWORD value.

4. Name the value NoDrives.

5. Press [Enter] twice to open the Edit DWORD Value dialog box.

6. Using the list below, type a number that corresponds to the drive you

want to hide in the Value Data text box, and click OK.
A: 1
B: 2
C: 4
D: 8
E: 16
F: 32

7. Close the Registry Editor.

You must restart the system or log out of Windows XP in order for the
change to take effect.

To hide other drive letters not listed here, follow the pattern of
doubling the number for each successive drive. For example, drive G: would
have a value of 64.

To hide multiple drives, add the values together. For example, to hide
drives A: and B:, use a value of 3. If you want to hide all drive letters,
use a value of 67108864.

NOTE: Editing the registry is risky, so be sure you have a verified
backup before making any changes.

Thanks to TechRepublic for this handy little gem!

thanks.. someone/somewhere (was it here?) was asking about this the other day..
not being intrigued enough to look further then.. I took a little further look just now.
As I was wondering if this will apply to w98 as well..

well i found another source for this tip.. and it had other things to say.

http://pcworld.shopping.yahoo.com/ya...,111111,00.asp

Quote:

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Hide a Drive

If you want to discourage others who log in to your Windows profile from using a particular drive, you can shroud it in a cloak of invisibility so that it won't show up in Explorer. The drive will remain accessible, however: Global searches will continue to examine its contents, some third-party file managers may still see it, and Microsoft Office apps will find it with no problem. But hiding the drive's letter in Windows Explorer may keep other users from hosing the drive by mistake.

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Just a quick note.
While Linux and Windows aren't the friendliest of neighbours, you could always make a linux partition that is only accessible via bootdisk (ie: no bootloaders) and when information is needed to be hidden or retrieved, just boot into Linux via floppy, take/place file from/onto the Windows partition and exit Linux afterwards.

From what I know, Windows does not recognize a Linux (ext) partition, thus retaining a hidden drive.

Makes sense?

Quote:

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Originally posted here by tyger_claw
Just a quick note.
From what I know, Windows does not recognize a Linux (ext) partition, thus retaining a hidden drive.

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Correct. Although there are 3rd party programs for Windows that will recognise an ext2 filesystem.

Another trick you could do, is if you have a fat partition, you could use a 3rd party "fdisk" program (the Linux one for instance, but Partition Magic can probably do it to) to change the "tag" on the partition to something other than MS-DOS.

Windows will then not recognise it as a fat partition and won't mount it - but the data are still there, and it can be changed back just as easily.

You won't need to install Linux to use this approach as it should be possible from a boot floppy.

Slarty

Quote:

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Originally posted here by tyger_claw

From what I know, Windows does not recognize a Linux (ext) partition, thus retaining a hidden drive.

Makes sense?

---

you are correct tyger_claw. i did this with my laptop at work a while back. they only wanted windows machines on the network, banning *nix machines. i had things i wanted to do on my work laptop that required *nix, so using partition magic, i shrunk the existing windows partition down a bit, freeing about 4 gigs worth of space, and made it a linux partition. barely noticable. i then installed my red hat on this partition, WITHOUT any red hat boot loaders. when you boot the machine, it goes directly into win200 pro. all looks good. with the quick insert of a unlabeled red hat boot disk that i carry in my laptop bag, it instantly becomes a redhat machine.

There is a product called "SCRAMDISK"..........sorry, I do not have a link, as I got it off a magazine cover CD.

This creates a virtual drive protected by up to a four password combination.

The drive data is encrypted as well.

Just thought this might be of interest?

Cheers

Quote:

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Originally posted here by nihil
There is a product called "SCRAMDISK"..........sorry, I do not have a link, as I got it off a magazine cover CD.

This creates a virtual drive protected by up to a four password combination.

The drive data is encrypted as well.

Just thought this might be of interest?

Cheers

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It has been renamed and re-marketed as Drivecrypt.

Quote:

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The new product named "DriveCrypt" offers unparalleled benefits to consumers over competing products such as incorporation of the latest standards (AES, SHA256) state-of-the-art steganograpy (information hiding) capabilities, volume resizing, console lockout functionalities, hotkey support and much more!

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I used the original "Scramdisk" and was quite impressed, I haven't had a chance to test the new product line.

You can get more info. HERE


Cheers:

The thing allenb1963 showed only "hides" the drive indeed, so it's still accessible if you just type c: in the explorer adress bar iirc. There's also a feature of the fat and ntfs fs's to just hide themselves. It's similar to what slarty said, but it's build in. Xosl uses this feature to allow multiple os's (windows in this case) to install without "seeing" eachother. You cuold look up the thing in linux's fdisk. You can get a list of all partition types and there should be a fat and a fat_hidden or something...

pff... I explained it very crappy again eh...

Hi neel,

You came across just fine to me. What you and others have mentioned prompted me to mention the Scramdisk (now Drivecrypt........thanks for the update DjM :) ) product.

This exists as an encrypted, password protected file on your system.

I have been looking at ways of creating and maintaining a secure recovery system on PCs, that were actually resident, hence my interest.

This has been a very interesting and useful thread.

Thanks guys.

Have a good week-end, and if you are in the USA, hope you missed the weather that I just saw on British TV

ty :)

let's all go on to the terminal age... we're in this game of 1. terminal-server -> 2. standalone workstation -> 3. when you pass this point go back to 1

Neel,

Do you actually remember IBM 5250s? and then the 5250 emulation cards for PCs?

:D

Cheers