Using 2 HD's to have 2 independent "computers"

[syvmn1]

I'm wondering if its possible to have 2 SATA hard drives installed in a computer each having its own copy of windows on it and using one hard drive at a time to basically have 2 separate computers. My girlfriend like downloading pogo.com games and she tends to virusify my computer in short order. I'm not free from blame either because of torrents. Here is my thought

Hard Drive #1 (computer #1) would be for the internet and general screwing around downloading stuff. If it gets some viruses and spyware I don't really care much.

Hard Drive #2 (computer #2) would be strictly for gaming, no interneting or downloading anything. Potential for viruses/spyware minimum.

I would like both hard drives to start up independently without showing the other drive when it is in use. I don't want to just partition a drive, I want to be able to pull out the infected drive (the interneting computer) if I need to. I don't want infections creeping across to the other gaming "computer".

Thanks guys

 

[Celegorm]

Try this out and see if it helps:

http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic9371.html

 

[Tommy Boy]

Yep, it's called a dual boot system. I have Vista and Windows 7 on my laptop, it's not 2 separate hard drives though, it's 2 separate partitions on one hard drive. And yes, they will be completely independent of each other.

 

[thebigdintx]

i'm not sure that a dual boot system will be "completely independent" of each other as far as being safe from infections not being able to creap over from one os to the other. i was dual booting windows 7 and vista and there was something i was able to do in 7 that allowed it to see the vista partition and i could access my data (photos/videos, etc.) that were on my vista install while i was booted into windows 7.

 

[Tommy Boy]

i'm not sure that a dual boot system will be "completely independent" of each other as far as being safe from infections not being able to creap over from one os to the other. i was dual booting windows 7 and vista and there was something i was able to do in 7 that allowed it to see the vista partition and i could access my data (photos/videos, etc.) that were on my vista install while i was booted into windows 7.

True, but the OP is talking about 2 separate hard drives.

 

[wol-va-rine]

True, but the OP is talking about 2 separate hard drives.

it doesn't matter if it's two separate hard drives or not, infections can spread to different hard drives easily if the other hard drive is accessed by the infected one...

 

[Computear]

I'm wondering if its possible to have 2 SATA hard drives installed in a computer each having its own copy of windows on it and using one hard drive at a time to basically have 2 separate computers. My girlfriend like downloading pogo.com games and she tends to virusify my computer in short order. I'm not free from blame either because of torrents. Here is my thought

Hard Drive #1 (computer #1) would be for the internet and general screwing around downloading stuff. If it gets some viruses and spyware I don't really care much.

Hard Drive #2 (computer #2) would be strictly for gaming, no interneting or downloading anything. Potential for viruses/spyware minimum.

I would like both hard drives to start up independently without showing the other drive when it is in use. I don't want to just partition a drive, I want to be able to pull out the infected drive (the interneting computer) if I need to. I don't want infections creeping across to the other gaming "computer".

Thanks guys

Get 2 different computers?

You can have your current computer as your gaming computer... then build a cheap rig for your girlfriend.

Won't cost much money to build a rig for flash games & viruses.

Then just get good anti-virus software on the virus machine.

That's the only safe way to do it.

 

[syvmn1]

I understand what people are saying but I don't think I was clear.

When I boot into the internet computer I don't want to see the hard drive for the gaming computer

and

When I boot into the gaming computer I don't want to see the hard drive for the internet computer

Basically what I want is something like a physical switch that will turn on one hard drive and turn off the other, then start the computer. If I want to switch to the internet computer, I'll shut it down, flip the switch and start it back up.

 

[Computear]

I understand what people are saying but I don't think I was clear.

When I boot into the internet computer I don't want to see the hard drive for the gaming computer

and

When I boot into the gaming computer I don't want to see the hard drive for the internet computer

Basically what I want is something like a physical switch that will turn on one hard drive and turn off the other, then start the computer. If I want to switch to the internet computer, I'll shut it down, flip the switch and start it back up.

A switch? idk

You could manually remove the harddrive?

 

[Cabbs]

I remember seeing someone on another forum that accomplished this with a switch.

http://www.cooldrives.com/4posaiisw3ba.html
http://www.thesataswitch.com/buy.htm

Couple quick finds.