What's the best way to hide/disable drives/folders

MrBen_4

Have set up a guest account for other people to use on my PC, but you can still see the entire directory structure of each drive. I have a few sensitive documents as well as personal ones. How would I go about, and what would I use to 'hide' this information?

Thanks.

ABH_3

You can use TweakUI for Windows XP to prevent it from showing up in Explorer, but its still accessible. You can also modify the drives "permissions" to make it inaccessible.


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. Pictorial here

How Do I Get the Security Tab in Properties - XP Home (makes the Security tab appear outside of Safe Mode)
http://www.dougknox.com, Win XP Tips section

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

HTH

matty_c608

I use folderguard.

It costs money but it does a fantasitc job. As a family we have one single login, with passworded folders. Saves on disk resources!

MrBen_4

Thanks, I tried all that but couldn't get it to work. It certainly doesn't make it obvious anyway. I'll have another go tomorrow night.

Mr_Skint_2

Right click the folder where the files are kept and choose properties
the put a tick in hidden, if you want to view them go into Windows Explorer
Tools, Folder Options, View Tab, then View hidden files and folders
then do the reverse to hide them again.