How to hide a disk

[haifisch]

Hello everyone,

I have a question about hiding partitions.

I want to make daily backups of my data drive to an internal hard drive using synctoy(contribute). I'm afraid that one day I will accidentally open up the E drive(backup) instead of the D drive(data to be backed up) and create or change new files on it without me noticing I made all those changes on the wrong drive and later, when it comes to disk failure, I won't have 2 copies of each files. So I came up wtih the idea of hiding the E drive(backup) from myself. I don't want to use the partition manager and remove the drive letter, because my folder pair wouldn't work then. Is there any other way to do it? I also don't want to use any 3rd party tools. Is it even possible?

Any help would be much appreciated

[vanished]

Wait, just checking, you do have 2 or more physical drives right?  You're not just backing up from one partition to another on the same HDD?

[haifisch]

Wait, just checking, you do have 2 or more physical drives right?  You're not just backing up from one partition to another on the same HDD?

Nah, I'm not They are two physical hard drives 500 GB each. They are identical btw, so I'm thinking of windows mirroring or raid1 them, but then I would lose the contribute feature of synctoy

[DXMember]

use this little trick to remove a drive letter

drives without a letter don't show up in Explorer

but you would have to have a little smarter program to be able to save your backups on a disk without a letter

 

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc757491(v=ws.10).aspx

[haifisch]

use this little trick to remove a drive letter

drives without a letter don't show up in Explorer

but you would have to have a little smarter program to be able to save your backups on a disk without a letter

 

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc757491(v=ws.10).aspx

Yeah, I know how to remove drive letters, but then I need another backup program Is that the only way? I'd like to know if it's possible to hide a drive without removing the drive letter

[DXMember]

I'm thinking of windows mirroring or raid1 them

raid 1 is not a substitute to backup

[haifisch]

raid 1 is not a substitute to backup

Thats true, but I would make monthly backups to an external drive anyway. I wouldn't go for raid because I would lose the contribute feature then

[DXMember]

Yeah, I know how to remove drive letters, but then I need another backup program Is that the only way? I'd like to know if it's possible to hide a drive without removing the drive letter

well that's the only legit way to do it you can google for some 3rd party tools online...

 

how does your backup program work? does it run as a background service? does it run as Windows scheduled task?

or do you run it manually?

you can create a scheduled task on a trigger to assign and unassign the drive letter in cmd before and after your back up task runs

 

i belive acronis true image doesn't rely on drive letter, but i'm not sure

does your current programm accept commandline arguments? you can create a bat script or a powershell script and run it from the task scheduler

[haifisch]

Well I'm thinking of something ghetto if there is no other way than just hiding all the folders on the backup drive, so when I accidentally open it I'll see it's the wrong one

[DXMember]

Thats true, but I would make monthly backups to an external drive anyway. I wouldn't go for raid because I would lose the contribute feature then

what's a contribute feature? is that like some sort of incremental backup or a file versioning thing?

[haifisch]

well that's the only legit way to do it you can google for some 3rd party tools online...

 

how does your backup program work? does it run as a background service? does it run as Windows scheduled task?

or do you run it manually?

you can create a scheduled task on a trigger to assign and unassign the drive letter in cmd before and after your back up task runs

 

i belive acronis true image doesn't rely on drive letter, but i'm not sure

does your current programm accept commandline arguments? you can create a bat script or a powershell script and run it from the task scheduler

I havent started these internal backups yet, as I got the drive a few days ago. I'm planning to use synctoy and running it as scheduled task in windows every day.

I'll look up assigning and unassigning drive letters on schedule, it sounds like it might be the solution to me, thanks. I also go and check aconis true image as you said

[haifisch]

what's a contribute feature? is that like some sort of incremental backup or a file versioning thing?

 

I'm still planning and got to know what synctoy can do, it's a microsoft tool, here is what this contribute feature does. It's really good when I delete a file and a few days later I wish I didn't do so

• Contribute

  - New and updated (renamed) files are copied LEFT to RIGHT only. Deleted files are not mirrored.

  - Use this option if you want to backup data files one-way, with the exception of deleted files.

[DXMember]

I havent started these internal backups yet, as I got the drive a few days ago. I'm planning to use synctoy and running it as scheduled task in windows every day.

I'll look up assigning and unassigning drive letters on schedule, it sounds like it might be the solution to me, thanks. I also go and check aconis true image as you said

acronis requires a payed license to use though...

if you run it on Windows task scheduler then just throw in diskpart to run before and after that, that'll be the cleanest solution

[DXMember]

 

I'm still planning and got to know what synctoy can do, it's a microsoft tool, here is what this contribute feature does. It's really good when I delete a file and a few days later I wish I didn't do so

• Contribute

  - New and updated (renamed) files are copied LEFT to RIGHT only. Deleted files are not mirrored.

  - Use this option if you want to backup data files one-way, with the exception of deleted files.

 

so it's like a regular back up... why don't they just call it a backup

[haifisch]

if you run it on Windows task scheduler then just throw in diskpart to run before and after that, that'll be the cleanest solution

I'm going to try that, thanks a lot

so it's like a regular back up... why don't they just call it a backup

I don't know

[haifisch]

if you run it on Windows task scheduler then just throw in diskpart to run before and after that, that'll be the cleanest solution

I just found and even cleaner solution on the web, here it is, pretty interesting: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/hide-drives-from-your-computer-in-windows-vista/

This is a good solution for me, I choose a letter for the backup drive, set up the synctoy folders I want to sync, set them up to automatic, then add the registry key and forget about it, everything works perfectly. This way, programs can access the drive, but it won't show up in windows explorer. If I ever want to see my drive again in explorer, I just have to remove this registry key.

[DXMember]

I just found and even cleaner solution on the web, here it is, pretty interesting: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/hide-drives-from-your-computer-in-windows-vista/

This is a good solution for me, I choose a letter for the backup drive, set up the synctoy folders I want to sync, set them up to automatic, then add the registry key and forget about it, everything works perfectly. This way, programs can access the drive, but it won't show up in windows explorer. If I ever want to see my drive again in explorer, I just have to remove this registry key.

cool...

yeah Windows with it's registry tweaks is awesome like that