Individual user HDs for fool-proofing a second user. Windows 7

GreenEar

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Apr 10, 2016
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Hi. Novice here.

Is there a way I could have two hard drives in my PC, and not have them access each other, without physically swapping drives at start up?

Would something like this be better set up in the "users" of the Windows OS? Would that provide the data protection I'm looking for?

What I have is a Windows 7 machine that is set up for cad/cam/cnc. What I would also like to do on that specific PC is allow a second user to learn coding, surf the Internet, and gaming. But I don't want that user to have any access to the cad,cam,nor cnc. Nor do I want the first user to have access to gaming. Nor do I want any crashing, viruses, nor bugs to impact the cad/cam/cnc side.

Is that possible?

I see there is a keyed switching hard drive dock out there. Is that what I want?

Is there an easier way to do it?

Is a keyed dock and switching the drives like that safe for my PC?

Thanks.
 
Solution
A removable drive sled would be the most secure but would obviously require physically swapping drives. It just makes it much more convenient. So long as you don't swap or switch while the system is on it's perfectly safe.

You could simply change the boot order in the BIOS to boot from different drives, then use disk management to hide the D:\ drive letter for the other drive. As you would still be able to access the hidden drive via commandline it's not completely safe, but requires no hardware.
A removable drive sled would be the most secure but would obviously require physically swapping drives. It just makes it much more convenient. So long as you don't swap or switch while the system is on it's perfectly safe.

You could simply change the boot order in the BIOS to boot from different drives, then use disk management to hide the D:\ drive letter for the other drive. As you would still be able to access the hidden drive via commandline it's not completely safe, but requires no hardware.
 
Solution

GreenEar

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Apr 10, 2016
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4,510


I like the idea of the removable drive sled.

Thanks