Partitioned external hard drive. Hide my partition on kids account?

RyzenJunkie · 7 Mar 2019 at 22:31

Hi,

I have just built a new PC and it will be used between myself, my wife and my 3 children. I have an external hard drive attached and its partitioned into 5 (one each). How do i hide my partition when the kids are logged into their account?

Cheers

d_brennen · 7 Mar 2019 at 22:48

NTFS permissions? Make kid's accounts basic users and deny everything from the top folders down, including list folder contents, to anyone but you

Or put your porn on a keyring thumb drive

RyzenJunkie · 7 Mar 2019 at 22:55

lol it aint porn. Its bills , private documents etc.

Rannoch · 7 Mar 2019 at 22:57

RyzenJunkie said:
lol it aint porn. Its bills , private documents etc.

Whatever it is make sure it’s backed up onto another drive or cloud.

RyzenJunkie · 7 Mar 2019 at 23:15

Yeah its all backed up , i just want them to not be able to delete important documents etc by accident.

OspreyO · 8 Mar 2019 at 01:37

Encrypt your partition. Should be doing this anyway with private docs.

RyzenJunkie · 8 Mar 2019 at 07:24

Encrypting isn't going to stop the kids being able to access it though from the same computer?

OspreyO · 8 Mar 2019 at 08:47

It is unless you set it to mount automatically.

Encrypted disk, partition or flash drive require a password to mount.

OspreyO · 8 Mar 2019 at 08:48

That's kinda the whole point.

RyzenJunkie · 8 Mar 2019 at 08:52

Can I encrypt the individual partitions?

Deleted member 77746 · 8 Mar 2019 at 09:12

RyzenJunkie said:
Yeah its all backed up , i just want them to not be able to delete important documents etc by accident.

Outlook Cloud / Dropbox / Mega (Cloud Storage) as it's known as - don't need to store things locally now, you probably won't have millions of documents. Might be time to look into this kind of option.

There is one way, you could put another smallish drive in the system, just don't assign it a drive letter until you want to use it. You could script it to add a drive letter / take it off when you don't require it. That means it will be there just not visible.

OspreyO · 8 Mar 2019 at 10:28

RyzenJunkie said:
Can I encrypt the individual partitions?

Yes. You can even create a encrypted file that you can mount as a disk.

OspreyO · 8 Mar 2019 at 10:31

mrbell1984 said:
Outlook Cloud / Dropbox / Mega (Cloud Storage) as it's known as - don't need to store things locally now, you probably won't have millions of documents. Might be time to look into this kind of option.

There is one way, you could put another smallish drive in the system, just don't assign it a drive letter until you want to use it. You could script it to add a drive letter / take it off when you don't require it. That means it will be there just not visible.

Security through obscurity is not security.

Security experts have rejected this view as far back as 1851, and advise that obscurity should never be the only security mechanism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_through_obscurity

The issue is security. Doesn't matter if the files are local or cloud based. The issue is still security.

OspreyO · 8 Mar 2019 at 10:36

Try something like Veracrypt.
https://www.veracrypt.fr/en/Home.html

Play with it, see if you like it. Just be aware if you encrypt something and lose the password you won't get it back. So should probably have a unencrypted copy somewhere off line. In secure location a fireproof box.

if your house burnt down or someone broken and nicked the PC or drive. Would you be ok with that. Could you recover your data. Do you need to.
People keep all their photos on their phone or online, then get the phone nicked or their account hacked. Best to have another copy somewhere. Probably 3 copies.

RyzenJunkie · 8 Mar 2019 at 10:43

OspreyO said:
Try something like Veracrypt.
https://www.veracrypt.fr/en/Home.html

Play with it, see if you like it. Just be aware if you encrypt something and lose the password you won't get it back. So should probably have a unencrypted copy somewhere off line. In secure location a fireproof box.

if your house burnt down or someone broken and nicked the PC or drive. Would you be ok with that. Could you recover your data. Do you need to.
People keep all their photos on their phone or online, then get the phone nicked or their account hacked. Best to have another copy somewhere. Probably 3 copies.

I'll try that .It's mainly old photos and documents I don't want to lose .I do currently have them backed up twice on dvds and on a portable SSD .Just wanted them on the pc so it's easier to get to but not wanting the kids reading documents about finances, letters etc

Semple · 8 Mar 2019 at 10:43

Just create a VHD and encrypt that. Then just unlock it whenever you need to add/remove/look at something. Just ensure you backup the VHD / upload to cloud as if the kids delete the vhd file then all your docs go with it.

Also if you plan to sync to cloud, keep it fairly small as sync won't be able to upload only changed files, it'll have to sync the entire drive again.

skyripper · 8 Mar 2019 at 10:49

Failing to understand why using different accounts and setting NTFS permissions isn't the answer here.
Assuming you don't make them Administrators. If you do, then they need to be trusted enough not to eff things up. Which depends on the maturity of the kids.

If they're anything like mine, they won't be the least bit interested in rifling thru the home accounts, bank statements or photos from the 1980s.

Deleted member 77746 · 8 Mar 2019 at 11:02

OspreyO said:
Security through obscurity is not security.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_through_obscurity

The issue is security. Doesn't matter if the files are local or cloud based. The issue is still security.

Security from what exactly? Turn on 2FA problem solved.

Personally for me the cloud is the way to move forward here. Security isn't an issue what so ever so I don't know where you are getting that from.

OP already said they have backups on DVDs so losing them isn't a problem either.

RyzenJunkie said:
Yeah its all backed up , i just want them to not be able to delete important documents etc by accident.

OspreyO · 8 Mar 2019 at 12:14

mrbell1984 said:
Security from what exactly? Turn on 2FA problem solved.

Personally for me the cloud is the way to move forward here. Security isn't an issue what so ever so I don't know where you are getting that from.

OP already said they have backups on DVDs so losing them isn't a problem either.

I was replying to the part about just hiding the drive letter. In fairness you never mentioned 2FA, you just said use the cloud. Many people just have the cloud storage just logging automatically.

Also with kids they have tendency to be devious and curious. Mine used to watch the reflection of my typing in the screen, and then combine the bits of the password they saw got to work out mine. Stuff like that.

OspreyO · 8 Mar 2019 at 12:17

skyripper said:
Failing to understand why using different accounts and setting NTFS permissions isn't the answer here.
Assuming you don't make them Administrators. If you do, then they need to be trusted enough not to eff things up. Which depends on the maturity of the kids.

If they're anything like mine, they won't be the least bit interested in rifling thru the home accounts, bank statements or photos from the 1980s.

Personally Local user accounts are a bit of pain when switching machines. I tend to keep my external drives so they can be used with any machine.
Kids, some can be curious. Also can be an issue if they have their mates around and let them use the computer.

There isn't one right or wrong way. What ever works for how you work.