from being shown when the other one is being used.... I built a computer for a friend and he has kids and I want his personal hard drive not being tampered with when his kids use there hard drive.... How can I do this? I want to password protect his hard drive (D from his kids on their hard drive (C

I suggest you set up separate login accounts for the main user and the kids, you can set a hardware profile in the kids account that doesn't include the main users drive.

Depending on how much the kids know about computers, simply unmapping the drive (remove its drive letter in the disk management console) may be enough.

However, I would recommend a removable drive to be more sure. Maybe a USB drive he can take with him to work etc.

If you're really worried, I agree you should consider encryption.

Ugh... another "hide my pr0n" post.

You can try a free program called TrueCrypt. With this software, you can set it up so that the entire device is encrypted. You must manually mount the drive using the software, which allows you to password protect access to the drive. I've used this on USB flash drives and it works great, but the principle should be the same for any hard drive.

Gotta love these posts. "My friends kids doesn't need to access one of his HDs" translation "I don't want my wife finding my p0rn. HELP!" lol good luck with that.

I use this softwear called Paragon DIsk Encryption. I have all my media files and programs encrypted at 448 blowfish. When i start my computer up it asked for a password. I type it in and it opens up another drive. It basically makes a partition on the harddrive that you made the image on.

lol, yup!

take that hard drive completely out, put it into a USB HD case. put your porn on it and when the kids come over, disconnect it and put it under your mattress.

Valis

Umm assuming this is a windows xp (or 2000, vista I would assume too) and your format your drives as NTFS, you can use the NTFS security rights to not allow access to your folders on your D drive. You may have to enamble the NTFS secuirty tab on your folder view if you don't see it by default.

umm surely this can be done with permissions create an account for each user (or group of users) then deny access to d:\ to those relevant

Regular NTFS permissions should work fine for this. Not all XP computers are NFTF however... although all support it (yes, Home supports NTFS)

We go from the topic line “I put 2 hard drives in my computer, I want to block one" to the well thought out "I built a computer for a friend and he has kids and I want his personal hard drive not being tampered with when his kids use there hard drive.... How can I do this?" OMG this is funny.

I think that anyone would need a more clear description of your "Friend's" issue to give you a perfect solution. I can only assume that if the system is primarily there for your "Friend's" use, he has material all over the system drive( C: Drive, The Drive where the operating system and Program installations reside.) Following that assumption, this wouldn't be a situation where he could just take every thing with him on a portable drive. The C: drive must stay put and any user will have some interaction with it because the files that make Mr. Computer walk and talk live there.
If you are using Windows 2K, XP(any flavor), or Vista the simple answer is to set up an account for kids that has limited access, customized so they can do what they need without viewing/tampering with your "Friend's files.

If the situation is more like what most of these posters are guessing, your "Friend" wants to hide and\or restrict access to files from other users without that other user really knowing that they have limited access. In that case your "Friend" can use encryption software as noted in other replies, but what your "Friend" really needs to do is practice good file management. Keep all sensitive files in specific folders, use windows or 3rd party software to set permission to access and hide those folders. Back those folders and files up to disc routinely.

Good luck to you and your Friend.