Keep drives absolutely separated

I want to buy a new hard drive and use it as my "test drive". If I have doubts about sites, mails, anything I will check it on that drive. If (maybe "when" suits here better ) things go out of control I will reformat it. My question is how I can keep the drive (and all the doubtful content) away from my clean drive. Is there a software, reliable way to do this or do I have to plug and unplug each drive when working with the other?

 

Some thoughts:

Dual-booting: install windows separately on both hard drives, and configure a boot options menu to allow you to select which at startup. This however, would be two entirely separate windows installations. The clean(er) drive won't be an accurate representation of your experience on the regular drive.

RAID (controller and identical drives required): You could mirror the drives, and remove one when you want to "test". When you are finished testing, if you are satisfied with how things work, you can mirror the test drive's data back to the other. If not, you can do the opposite; push the good drive's data back onto the test drive.

 

thanks for replying Mada. Of course I am going to have a dual boot. The thing is that even if I boot from the "test drive" the cleaner one will be accessible to any threat. As for a RAID level I would need a new 250Gb drive which is not what I had in mind . I am just asking is there a way through windows settings, BIOS settings or even a 3rd party program, to keep on drive locked, or even disabled, while booting and working on the other. Perhaps the only way is to replace the drive each time I wanna test something.

 

Such as...?? I've been dual booting for a long time & haven't run across anything yet that has been able to affect multiple drives. Nevertheless, a few suggestions:

Assuming you're working with XP, I suppose you could format your "test" drive as FAT32, and format the "clean" drive as NTFS. In this way, when you boot into your 'test' OS, you can't even see your other 'clean' drive. Of course, you could access the 'test' drive when booted into the 'clean' OS, in case you need to do some serious data retrieval after 'testing'.

Have you looked into something like Virtual Sandbox? It allows you to set-up a virtual environment to do exactly what you want...open suspect emails, run suspect programs, etc with no danger to your actual hardware at all.

http://www.download.com/Virtual-Sandbox-Free-Edition/3000-2239-10529743.html

 

wavetar, V-sandbox seemed like perfect for this job... until I read some reviews. Even without the reviews would a program (especially one from download.com) be reliable?

you mean that viruses,spy ware, etc infect only one drive? :confused I've seen a whole LAN being infected by a single virus, how can the system's own drives remain unaffected. Maybe I'm wrong. Thanks for the link anyway

 

The only bad review I read was from someone who obviously didn't know how to use it. All others were good, other than no uninstaller available for the program. Go to the virtual sandbox site to read more up on it. At worst, use trueimage or similar to image your system beforehand, so you can roll back if need be.

Viruses infect an OS, not a particular drive. Whatever drive your booted OS is on, that's the drive it'll infect. Some viruses then reach out through a LAN/Internet to infect other computers, but they'll only infect the OS, not multiple drives.

Now that said, out of the 80 billion viruses out there, some may have been specifically written to attack a slave drive, but I've never seen or heard of it. In that case, the FAT32/NTFS set-up I described should protect against that.

 

Sailor,
Have you thought about vmware-server; install your second os on the virtual machine. If you had a problem, you could simply delete the virtual windows machine and define a new one and install windows clean (on the virtual machine)

Better yet, install windows on the virtual machine, make a backup copy of the virtual machine, then you can restore the backup whenever you want to strt with a fresh copy of windows - a lot quicker than an install

It is free HERE​

 

If wavetar is right (and I don't see why he shouldn't be right) the differently formated drive will be the most secure way to do it. Thanks for the link GrayG, I'll keep it in mind. So I suppose I now have enough suggestions to pick. Thank you all guys!

 

A removeable drive and enclosure would be perfect for this.

The problem with Virtual machines, is that if the threat is severe enough, the OS on the virtual drive may not be usable. Not to mention, VMWare performance is poor compared to the real thing.

You could always go Linux, or FreeBSD. Then any threat facing Windows won't even have a hope to touch the second drive.

 

Thats not entirely true. Trojans that use ADS prey on the filesystem just as much as the OS. There is no reason they can't or won't attach to another drive.

 

So delete the virtual machine, define a new one and reinstall the os on the new virtual machine.

I am running a $70 3ghz processor on an abit mobo, and the preformance I get is as good as I get on my 900mhz box.

 

If the Host OS isn't usable, I'm thinking you have a tough time making a new VM. Maybe I'm wrong.

3ghz performing like 900mhz? I believe that. Thats also less than 1/3 of the performance the cpu has. I didn't enjoy running Windows XP on a 1.33ghz CPU, much less 900mhz.

To each their own, of course.

 

You are absolutly correct.

I am wrong; I misunderstood the object of this thread; I thought it was about protecting the OS so that it wouldn't crash.

And I do that with a windows virtual os on a Linux host. This provides excellent protection of my windows based computer. And the same thing should be true with a vm running on a windows host

 

that's what I had in mind in the very beginning. I don't know if my mo/bo supports e-sata, though :confused. Again let me ask one last time: when I plug the (external) test drive, what happens there can affect my regular drive. The only way to prevent this would be a different file system on each drive? Can I order a modern drive formated in Fat32 or do I have to do it my self (cuz I have never reformated a hd)?

PS thanks for proving that malware does infect other drives in the same system

 

Maybe so, I'm just saying it's a remote enough possibility that it isn't something one would normally worry about. I don't recall a post even here on Major Geeks in the last couple of years which dealt with a virus/trojan corrupting a slave drive. Is it not the reason we generally give the sound advice to back up all sensitive files to a physically separate hard drive (not a partition) for protection?

 

Separate filesystems only help if the OS cannot read both.

Windows XP can read FAT32 and NTFS, so that isn't so helpful.

HOWEVER, something like XP on NTFS and Linux on Ext3 or w/e, is ideal, because XP cannot read EXT3, and Linux cannot effectively write to NTFS (For the most part).

 

MG deals with a very small corner of the web. Thats not knocking MG, just simply stating that what we see here is very, very minute.

Arguments aside, the thread stated explicitly, absolutely separated. If there are two drives under an OS that can read both filesystems, they are not separated, and cut off from one another.

 

That would be secure but useless too. If I check programs in another OS but can't use them in my regular drive OS, what's the point? This is getting a little hardware related but I'll mention it. I am going to get an external drive. What I have in mind (unless I can get e-sata enclosure) is WD Passport 60 GB USB. How can I find out if my mo/bo supports e-sata connection?

 

Post your motherboard.

I was under the impression you could get a drop in PCI card.

 

It's an MSI K8N Neo4-F Platinum.

I didn't get your point (I'm never going to pass the English exams )

 

maybe we aren't thinking of the same thing. You buy a removable hard drive enclosure, then buy the casing for the drive.

As shown here:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817121178

No need for e-sata, which, as I understood, could be added to a motherboard by a PCI card. Maybe not.

 

Sorry it took me soooo long to reply but I kinda forgot this matter.

AFAIK Sata enclosures are not connected through USB port

Besides the type of the hd let's come back to the initial question. Can I not disable a drive through BIOS?

 

Not that I know of.


As for the drive cage, Its not for external use so it wouldnt hook to USB anyway.

 

too bad. seems there's no way around this. I guess I'll have to plug/unplug each drive. Can this plugging in and out harm the PC in any way?

I think I should have said more about the type of the hd. I do want it to be external and don't want it to connect on USB. USB drives are expensive and slow. Does my mo/bo (MSI K8N Neo4-F Platinum) support other types of connections?

 

No, but you can buy an external sata card.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16839333002

 

really really intresting. Thanks a lot Adry, one question left and case closed (I hope). Can the plugging in and out harm the PC in any way? Damaging ports or something like that.

 

SATA is hot swappable, so no.