Expert: Carolyn Meinel - 1/11/2008

Question
Hi:

I am running Windows XP Pro with Sp 2.  I have a 50gb hard drive and formatted it last week.  I reinstalled the O.S. and this time created a "C" partition and an "F" partition.  Both the C and F partitions are NTFS.  On the PC are three accounts.  The Administrator, me (who I gave admin rights) and then my wife who I did not give admin rights to.  When she logs onto the PC, how can I set it up so she can't access anything on the "F" partition?

Thanks,

Paul

Answer
Windows with NTFS offers two ways to protect your data: by restricting access from your wife's account, and by encrypting your data. You can access instructions for these simple tasks from Start --> Help.

HOWEVER, these techniques will just make your wife suspicious as heck! She will see that you have an F drive, and she'll wonder why you hide the contents from her. Even worse, if she were to email me for help, I'd tell her how to install a keystroke logger, for example a hardware device she could hide inside your computer or inside a keyboard and soon she would have your password and be running to a divorce lawyer with evidence.

If you want to keep that F drive really, really secret, get Norton Partition Magic and use the advanced partition hiding feature in its Boot Magic section. Then unhide F when you want to use it, and be sure to rehide it after each use. This requires rebooting the computer to complete the hiding, so you can't leave it on when you leave the room.

You can tell Boot Magic to hide F as soon as you've booted up and logged in, and you would still be able to use F until you reboot.  That way hiding will be automatic if you do an emergency shutdown. I don't recommend just turning off the power because this can damage files, but in an emergency hitting the off button should work as the partition hiding isn't done until the computer starts up the next time.

OK, one problem with this is your wife will see the Boot Magic screen every time she turns on the computer. To avoid embarrassing questions, you could install the Linux operating system. Then the bootup menu from Boot Magic would offer the choice of Windows or Linux and say nothing about the F drive.  I recommend Red Hat or SuSE Linux. Besides, once you install Linux, you may get so much fun out of this operating system for supergeeks that you will lose interest in your F drive. Or maybe not:) Besides, you can apply far better security to that F drive, which you will be able to access through Linux, than Windows could ever provide.

Best yet, put your ubersecret files on a Linux formatted partition. Linux can read to NTFS partitions, but can't write to them. So if you want to add to that drive you'll need to reformat it with a Linux-only  file system. I recommend Ext3, not Reiser as sometimes a Reiser file system will catastrophically self-destruct, just like Hans Reiser, its inventor, did when, according to the prosecutor's case in his ongoing murder trial, he thought he could get away with murdering his wife. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/14/BAFDUC5VR.DTL

But, what if your wife discovers the Linuxchix.org website?;^) Or asks me how to break your Linux root password? Muhahaha...

Warning: if you are planning to hide anything illegal on F:, some law enforcement organizations, for example the FBI, knows how to get around these security measures. Even if you use an unbreakable encryption technique, you could wind up behind bars anyhow, because that is what happened to Kevin Mitnick for refusing to provide the keys to decrypt his hard drive.