Seeing all drives?

[megabomination]

Hi .I have two HDD , both runnimg XP ,i just reformatted one of my drives (the new one) and im wondering if it is normal to see the old HDD drives(C:/ACER and D:/ACERDATA) in 'my computer' of the new HDD that i just reformattd? Is this a raid configuration? I would like to have it so you cant see the old HDD! Is this possible? or will xp allways see all drives on my computer regardless of what HDD is booted up on startup? Also is it possible for any viruses to jump from one HDD to the other? The reason being i want to keep the new HDD ive just reformatted primarily for internet banking ect... Thanks.

 

[wii-ste]

Not sure that I fully understand this. The way I read this is that you have:
Disk1 - Your main disk including ACER and ACERDATA
Disk2 - Your second disk that you use for Internet Banking

Are you saying that when you boot with Disk2, you want the partitions of Disk1 to be hidden? If this is the case then you would need to right-click My Computer, select Manage. On the left select Storage > Disk Management. You will see the drives listed at the top. Right click each that you want to remove and select Change Drive Letters and Paths, then click the Remove button, then OK.

As for your question of whether virus can 'jump' between drives, depending on the virus in question, yes. Your idea of two drives in the same system seperated in this way is not the ideal defence. Do you have anti-virus, anti-spyware and firewall installed?

You may want to read up about Virtualization. You could create 2 virtual machines - one for everyday and the other your your online banking.

 

[megabomination]

Thanks. Yes they are two seperate drives. The origional one from my first pc which was an ACER(all of which is left now is the HDD, OS, keyborad and mouse) and the second HDD that i purchased to primarily keep for banking,superannuation details etc... I would like these two HDD to not just be hidden from one another, but be completely seperate of one another so no information can be transfered between the two!? At the moment the only way i can achieve this is to unplug the one im not using ,as disableing it in BIOS for some reason doesnt work as the HDD thats disabled can still be seen in the HDD that has been booted? I would like to have it so either HDD can be booted from the boot menu without having to go into BIOS, and so i cant access the drives of the unbooted HDD! Thanks for any help you can give!

 

[wii-ste]

Hi,

Yes, Windows sort of ignores the BIOS when detecting drives so you may still see it in Windows even if disabled in BIOS.

Removing the drive (ie unplugging it) is really the only way to do what you want.

 

[megabomination]

Thanks. I thought that might be the case. Would i have to open and use a drive in some way for a virus, ect. to jump into the HDD that i have booted or could a virus just find its own way in even if i hide the drives as you said? And , what would be the likelyhood of encountering such a virus? Could a common virus/malware/spyware do this easily or would one be very unlucky to pick up such a virus?

 

[wii-ste]

If you have an anti virus, anti malware and firewall installed, it will minimise the risk. It is possible (depending on the malware) for infection across drives without actually accessing the other drive, however the chances of this, I could not tell you.

Most people manage perfectly fine with one OS install and a good security suite.

Did you read up about virtualization? If you still want to separate the tasks, I still think this would be more suitable for what you are trying to do.