Advice Please; How to "Quarantine" Hard Drives

Is it really possible to "Quarantine" three system hard drives from a
single hard drive when that hard drive is used for internet related
purposes?(The idea is to keep them from from viruses, hacking, ect.).

Thanks a lot.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

(Darren Harris) writes:
Is it really possible to "Quarantine" three system hard drives from a
single hard drive when that hard drive is used for internet related
purposes?(The idea is to keep them from from viruses, hacking, ect.).

There was a retail product called "Hard Drive Sherrif" that might help you.

I always thought a nice product would be a big red switch and a
modification of defrag. You decide, with some assistance from the
software, which files you don't want changed, probably forever.
The software moves all those to one side of "the fence." Things
that you are expecting to change are kept on the other side of "the
fence." When it is finished moving files it asks you to flip the
switch. Then any attempt to write on the wrong side of the fence
results in a disk write error and it doesn't do the write. No
software can then flip that switch, and that is the essential part
of providing that security. (It actually wouldn't be too difficult
for a company to build such a product)

It would seem to me that a substantial fraction of your hard drive
is stuff that you likely very very rarely want to change, and if
something does try to change that then it is almost certainly a
bug or a virus. (Now if Microsoft just didn't need to patch their
code every week we would be set!)

I believe in the past I have seen hard drives with a jumper that write
protects a hard drive (SCSI drives ?)
Maybe you could go into the bios at startup and disable the IDE controller
the drives are connected to.
Or put the drives into an external USB case and leave the drive disconnected
when not in use.

"Darren Harris" wrote in message
om...
Is it really possible to "Quarantine" three system hard drives from a
single hard drive when that hard drive is used for internet related
purposes?(The idea is to keep them from from viruses, hacking, ect.).

Thanks a lot.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

Darren Harris wrote:

Is it really possible to "Quarantine" three system hard drives from a
single hard drive when that hard drive is used for internet related
purposes?(The idea is to keep them from from viruses, hacking, ect.).

Thanks a lot.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

On Linux, you mean?

--
The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to
minimize spam. Our true address is of the form .

I'll be using Windows XP. All four drives will be in a single case.
And I really need to be able to access any of the drives on a dime,
but will be spending most of the time using drive "C".

Basically, what I'm looking for is something simular in principle to
the way the "Recycle Bin" works. Data/apps in there cannot be changed.
One would have to restore them first.

Since those "brains" over at Microsoft will never come up with a
secure OS, you'd think that a simple "Quarantine" function would be
incorporated into their products.

Thanks a lot.

Darren Harris
Staten ISland, New York.

I'll be using Windows XP. All four drives will be in a single case.
And I really need to be able to access any of the drives on a dime,
but will be spending most of the time using drive "C".

Basically, what I'm looking for is something simular in principle to
the way the "Recycle Bin" works. Data/apps in there cannot be changed.
One would have to restore them first.

Since those "brains" over at Microsoft will never come up with a
secure OS, you'd think that a simple "Quarantine" function would be
incorporated into their products.

Thanks a lot.

Darren Harris
Staten ISland, New York.

On 8 Aug 2004 22:52:01 -0700, (Darren Harris) wrote:

Basically, what I'm looking for is something simular in principle to
the way the "Recycle Bin" works. Data/apps in there cannot be changed.
One would have to restore them first.

Could you not create a zip file on each drive, which XP will then treat as a
folder. Then password protect it?
Although my experience of XP's handling of zip files is that it sucks...

Just a thought.

Chris Pollard

--
CG Internet café, Tagum City, Philippines
http://www.cginternet.net

I have not personally done what you are trying to do. That said
simply typed in
" password protect hard drive " on Google and got a ton of hits.
This one looks promising...... http://www.softstack.com/hidedrv.html

Hide and Protect Drives will apparently password protect hard drives,
floppy drives...... even CD and DVD drives. ( BTW....It's $29.95 )

Let us know if you find something better. Good luck!

================================================== ==================
(Darren Harris) wrote in message . com...
Is it really possible to "Quarantine" three system hard drives from a
single hard drive when that hard drive is used for internet related
purposes?(The idea is to keep them from from viruses, hacking, ect.).

Thanks a lot.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

Darren Harris wrote:

I'll be using Windows XP. All four drives will be in a single case.
And I really need to be able to access any of the drives on a dime,
but will be spending most of the time using drive "C".

Basically, what I'm looking for is something simular in principle to
the way the "Recycle Bin" works. Data/apps in there cannot be changed.
One would have to restore them first.

Since those "brains" over at Microsoft will never come up with a
secure OS, you'd think that a simple "Quarantine" function would be
incorporated into their products.

Such a "quarantine" function would be no more reliable than the security of
the OS. While you can't call up a file from the recycle bin and edit it
with Word someone who knows what he's about should be able to alter the
contents regardless--those files aren't really protected in any special
manner.

If you're running 2K/XP I believe you can set policies on the drives that
deny writing to specific users--I know you can do that if you have a domain
going just don't recall if it's possible to do it with workstation working
standalone. That's fairly robust.

_Safest_ bet is to put the files you want to protect on a server that has no
Internet access and then use the security features of the OS on that server
to prevent writing. That way security is handled independently of anything
that happens on your working machine. You can use Linux or BSD on the
server if you can't afford Windows Server or if you feel like doing a
little "sweet talking" you can probably get a 5 user copy of Netware for
Small Business (or whatever they're calling it this week) out of your local
Novell authorized reseller--the 5 user is officially free but available
only through resellers.

Thanks a lot.

Darren Harris
Staten ISland, New York.

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

Format the drives as NTFS, set the security permissions "Read" for everybody
and "modify" for Administrators.
Then, to copy files there, you'll need to be logged as an administrator. Any
account will be able to read those files.

To make sure the malware won't be able to install on your computer: never
work as an administrator or a member of Administrators group. Make your user
account "limited user". Then, even some security hole or your own fault will
allow some malware install to run, it won't be able to copy anything to the
system folders and register itself in the OS.

"Darren Harris" wrote in message
om...
Is it really possible to "Quarantine" three system hard drives from a
single hard drive when that hard drive is used for internet related
purposes?(The idea is to keep them from from viruses, hacking, ect.).

Thanks a lot.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.