Preventing access to a secondary hard drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter Pat
  • Start date Start date
P

Pat

I have installed an additional hard drive to my computer
to compile my videos/music/pictures. The Windows XP OS is
on the primary hard drive. Does anyone know if there is a
way to prevent access to the secondary hard drive by other
users?
Thanks,
Pat
 
If you're running NTFS as your file system, you can 'take ownership' of the
drive and its contents, and then assign what users/groups have access to it.
Of course, any other Administrator account can take ownership as well.

See Help and Support and search for "take ownership"

HOW TO: Take Ownership of a File or Folder in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=308421

File/Folder Security: To do this, you must be running NTFS as your file
system on the drive in question. If your hard disk/partition is not NTFS
you will need to convert it. To do this, open a Command Prompt window and
enter the following command:

CONVERT X: /FS:NTFS

Where X: is the drive letter you wish to convert. You may also want to see
http://www.aumha.org/a/ntfscvt.htm to ensure that you're getting the optimal
conversion.

After this step is completed and you've rebooted the computer, if necessary:

XP PRO: In Windows Explorer, go to Tools, Folder Options, View and uncheck
Use Simple File Sharing. Now, when you right click on a drive, folder or
file (on an NTFS partition) and select Properties, you'll see a Security
tab. Here you can assign or deny permissions based on user name or user
group membership.

XP Home: By default, you can only make files and folders under My Documents
"private". This is done by right clicking a folder or file and selecting
Properties, Sharing. To change the permissions on other folders, you need
to boot the computer to Safe Mode and log in on the built in Administrator
account. In this mode, you'll see the Security tab in Properties, and you
can assign permissions based on user name or group membership.

HOW TO: Set, View, Change, or Remove File and Folder Permissions in Windows
XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308418

HOW TO: Set, View, Change, or Remove Special Permissions for Files and
Folders
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;308419

HOW TO: Disable Simplified Sharing and Password-Protect a Shared Folder in
Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;307874
 
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