Tom's Hardware > Forum > Applications > Security, Utilities, Anti-Malware > Plausible deniability - simulated hard disk fail at boot

Plausible deniability - simulated hard disk fail at boot

Forum Applications : Security, Utilities, Anti-Malware - Plausible deniability - simulated hard disk fail at boot

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pauloandre   05-23-2008 at 01:18:01 AM

Hi
I am looking for a solution to simulate a hard disk fail or something like that at boot level and only allow to continue after a password. I don't need full-disk encryption, but I won't mind if that's required. What I really need is to look like the disk in unreadable and not encrypted at the boot, so any solution with a login or password field is not what I want.
Any ideas?

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ohiou_grad_06   05-23-2008 at 06:46:41 AM
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I know you don't really like the idea of passwords. But look in the BIOS of your motherboard. On most boards that you buy for a system you are building, you can set a bios password. Which essentially once you turn the computer on, it may allow you to set a password which would have to be correctly entered to boot. However, don't lose that password!!!

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pauloandre   05-23-2008 at 12:23:06 PM
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yes, but that's not the ideia I'm looking for. I want to make it look like the hard drive is unusable, so that nobody forces me to give the password.

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Groo   05-28-2008 at 06:58:40 PM
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how about the Abit's secure IDE?

I think it makes the drive completly unreadable w/o the physical key. I imagine it would come back as unformatted.

but you do realize it probably wont keep your kiddy porn colection secret from the police, they can break that level of security if hey want to. a visual search inside the machine will show whats going on, and ofcourse it isn't a laptop option.

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pauloandre   05-28-2008 at 09:20:37 PM
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Yes, that's not an option for me. I wanted this for a virtual drive, inside vmware. This is because in my work laptop I'm not allowed to have any unauthorized software, I'm using a virtual windows for that, but I want to make it look like unusable if an audit comes to my pc. If it asks for a password it shows to have something there.

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Groo   05-28-2008 at 09:38:47 PM
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wouldn't an external HDD solve all of your problems?

the software wouldn't be installed on company property, and you could unplug it at will.

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pauloandre   05-30-2008 at 05:34:33 PM
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true, but that's not as fast and especially is not as mobile as having everything in the same hard drive. However, that is the option I'm falling back to if I don't get an answer here.

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Groo   05-30-2008 at 06:51:09 PM
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here are a couple of other option
http://www.gadgets-network.com/gad [...] -the-case/

http://www.sandisk.com/OEM/Product [...] _Disk.aspx

I think something like the first one may be perfect for you if you have an express card

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pauloandre   05-31-2008 at 01:19:47 AM
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again, your solution works, but it's not what I'm looking for, I wanted something a LOT cheaper... Something based on software only would be great.

Reply to pauloandre
Flakes   06-12-2008 at 02:47:31 PM
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you could always install a slim version of windows onto a 4GB USB stick then use that to boot your PC, if anyone tries to boot your computer without the USB plugged in then your Computer will state that it found no boot disk, which is also the same error you get when a HDD completely fails.

Reply to Flakes
Flakes   06-12-2008 at 02:50:00 PM
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hmm i just re-read one of your posts, if its software just grab a usb stick and install the portable versions, you can get portable versions of just about everything even office and Photoshop.

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