Is dual-booting safe?

From: Charlie Gibbs (cgibbs_at_kltpzyxm.invalid)
Date: 09/30/05 

Date: 29 Sep 05 17:33:10 -0800

I've been seeing a lot of posts about dual-booting Linux and Windows.
I haven't been paying much attention, though. First of all, I've
heard enough horror stories to make me think that dual-booting is
more trouble than it's worth. Second, I'm concerned about the
security of a dual-booting system. After all, any OS (at least
when not in a virtual machine) has access to the entire drive;
I like to think of partitions as a convention that most operating
systems are courteous enough to respect.

However, given Microsoft's reputation for not playing nicely with
others (e.g. Windows' tendency to stomp on the MBR in a dual-boot
setup), I think I'm justified in being a bit paranoid about whether
Windows, when booted, can be trusted to leave Linux partitions
alone. Windows has already been caught snooping on users' files
and reporting the results back to Big Brother Bill, and I can see
no technical (or, in their case, moral) reason why Windows wouldn't
spy on Linux partitions given the opportunity.

Can any of you who use dual-booted systems provide any views?
I don't know whether anything would let me come any closer than
swappable hard drives, but I'd be interested in what any of you
have to say. 

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