Is temporary mounting of USB HDD to W7 folder safe?

[robilong]

Does mounting USB HD drive to folder changes anything in USB drive partition settings?
File system is NTFS.

Purpose is to create temporary one 4 Tb searchable folder of 2 pieces 2TB USB hard drives, which else are kept as backup drives. And should remain accessible also alone as USB drives after dismounting.

The question is, does Windows 7 mounting changes somehow USB HDD partition settings?

Test with 16GB USB stick looked like there was no changes after dismounting and connecting USB stick to other PC. But is it safe?

 

[Kaktussoft]

mounting is:

• Assign a drive letter to it in registry. so windows file explorer can access it
• Create a Junction to the volume. So it's a virtual pointer to real volume. In windows file explorer it looks like a folder.

So all is done in registry or on the volume where the virtual folder is located. For example C:\virtual\MyUSBDrive points To USB\first partition

So it's safe! Unless you delete files... a virus jumps over.... that kind of things

 

[Britton30]

No it won't change your partitions. I however do use the Safely Remove option before unplugging mine.