Virus Prevention - Can we boot up OS and have a physical drive "invisible"?

[Alerax]

Hi guys,

 

This is my first time posting, so apologize in advance if I seem a bit lost. After watching Linus's vid on two gaming rigs in one tower, I got curious about this. I'm not sure where to ask this question, and have not been able to found a solution online. I'm about to build a new computer, and I was wondering:

 

If I have three different physical hard drives (let's call them HD A, HD B, and HD C), would it be possible to setup the system such that if I install separate OS to HD A and HD C, when I boot HD A, I will have access to HD A and HD B, but when I boot to HD C, I only can see HD C?

 

I figured if this could be done, then I could isolate my important files in HD C, and if my HD A/B gets infected with virus, my important files won't be affected. (or am I completely incorrect with this...?)

 

System Components:

 

Asus Z170 Sabertooth Mark I

Asus GTX 980 Strix

Intel I5 6600K

2x SDD Samsung Evo 850

1x HDD Seagate SSHD 2 TB

Windows 10 Home

 

Thanks in advance,

Nate

[Sauron]

You can encrypt drive C. That way you can access it from whatever os, but only if you have the password. As for viruses, well... an encrypted drive won't allow anything to write to it without the password, but if you copy infected data over nothing's going to stop you either way. You don't risk it being infected by ransomware though.

 

Or, use an external enclosure and only plug it in when you need it.

[Enderman]

no

all the drives connected to your motherboard will be detected, unless you plug the drive into a port controlled by a 3rd party driver and you disable that 3rd party driver in the UEFI, in which case you would not see the drive from any OS

[Alerax]

Ah. Got it. Thanks guys I really appreciate the quick responses. I'll look into both solutions and see what I can come up with.