Seperating hard drives

[moderate_rock48]

I have three seperate SATA 150 hard drives on the same compter. I was wondering if three different users would be able to have their own hard drive. Login with a username and password, and not be able to see or interfere with the other two hard drives. Thanks.

[kc0arf]

Hello,

Strictly, no. Why? Because you will have to have the operating system installed somewhere, and the users will need access to those files in order to operate the computer. Strictly speaking, you will have to grant access to those files.

Your other major challenge is that when you grant physical access to the workstation, you have to make additional modifications to the OS, because the "vision" the user has is not limited to a sharepoint.

What you are asking to do might be best achieved via linux. You can control access at the file system level, and can also control what is installed via X and other shells / GUIs.

If you want to try to do this via Windows, you are going to need to work hard to get your NTFS permissions correct. The other problem is that most Windows machines have to run in administrator mode, and that trumps NTFS... any administrator or admin equivalent can "take ownership" and reset the perms. Thus, the Linux route is easier.

BUT

You can boot a linux computer into "safe mode" and reset the root password, and then re-do the permissions. See what I mean about challenges with the security when physical access is granted?

IF YOU REALLY DESIRE to isolate the three drives, they need to be accessed over a network, and not have any physical access. Or, you are going to need to dig deep into encryption.

Christian

[moderate_rock48]

Alright, thanks for the response, looks like I will have to take a different route.

[vtechno42]

I have three seperate SATA 150 hard drives on the same compter. I was wondering if three different users would be able to have their own hard drive. Login with a username and password, and not be able to see or interfere with the other two hard drives. Thanks.

Hey, I recently bought a new Netgear router and there was a flier for the product they talk about in this press release:
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/01-05-2005/0002769983&EDATE=

This (when it's released) would be able to do what you want... just network the drives, make them password protected for each individual one, then map a network drive.

Keep a look out for when that thing gets released. =)