I'm looking for an application that will lock my portable hard drive when i'm not using it. i want to be able to connect my portable hard drive to any computer and i want be prompted to put a password to get my files. i have an encryption application and some of the file are encrypt but not all for convenience purpose. any recommendations

thanks

If you have admin rights on the computers where you use your drive, then TrueCrypt (listed at http://www.portablefreeware.com/?id=199) may meet your needs. TrueCrypt creates a virtual hard drive which is backed by an encrypted file. You mount the virtual drive, you access your files just like they were stored on a normal drive, you dismount the virtual drive. Your data never hits the disk unencrypted (except swap files, but thats another problem).

-- FG

Hi bulawil!

In addition to FlightGeek's great suggestion to try TrueCrypt for your solution, you could also try FreeOTFE at http://www.freeotfe.org/ Like TrueCrypt, it offers an encrypted file-hosted volume. However, I've ran Sandra benchmarks on both, and FreeOTFE is dramatically faster than TrueCrypt. If speed isn't an issue, I suspect either will do the job...


--Gary

Thanks guys! i downloaded TrueCrypt, great idea FlightGeek, let see if this works for me! Gary Olof thanks for the suggestion....

Hey guys what are you using for a usb launcher, i downloaded ustart, it seems simple....any suggestions

thanks again for your help

bulawil

Launcher? Isn't every portable app just a plugin for PStart?

It's developer focuses on portability, and though it's a simple-to-use, no-nonsense tool, it offers many useful functions like hotkeys, notes, task scheduling, on start/on exit autorun. It's explorer-like interface allows to easily organize 500+ shortcuts (well, I never tried more).

In addition to PStart (and auto-launched by it) I use RK Launcher and Launchy. All 3 start apps and open files or folders, but none of them is redundant, as I use them in quite different ways.

The number of apps you want to launch is a criterion when choosing the right launcher, as there are many promising projects, but not all of them can handle massive numbers of shortcuts.

I want to be able to connect my portable hard drive to any computer too, but i can't do that!

You can't what?
Is there a usb plug at your hard drive?

Just do anything as if you were at home, just with the other computer. Then on older OSes (Windows 98 and below) check that a driver is installed.

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http://enormator.110mb.com

Assuming that it's not a simple thing like plugging the drive in:

1) Is loading the Truecrypt driver the problem? If you don't have administrator rights you can use TCExplorer to read your encrypted container.

2) If you encrypted the whole partition then you will need a second device to hold an unencrypted copy of Truecrypt in case the target computer does not have Truecrypt installed.

3) Some systems have BIOS or software policy tweaks which disable unrecognized (or all) portable USB drives for security purposes. If your target PC is so configured then you are out of luck.

Creating volumes, please remember about TCExplorer's limitations:

- cannot handle files with unicode names in TrueCrypt containers,
- can only open TrueCrypt containers with FAT partitions,
- cannot handle hidden volumes.

2bulawil
Haven't tested yet but maybe Rohos Mini Drive will help:
http://www.rohos.com/free-encryption/

hey guys i want to password protect not encrypt (password is enough) my external HDD

There are no sensitive data or something, just as a deterrent

it's to stop my brothers & cousin from snooping around

The only thing I could find was this: http://www.softstack.com/hidedrv.html and Folder Lock http://www.softpedia.com/get/Security/L ... Lock.shtml, which aren't free.

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Supporting the Electronic Frontier Foundation | DuckDuckGo user | My GPG key | Projects donated to: VLC, CubicExplorer, Ditto, Greenshot, TrueCrypt

all i found were a few paid softwares thanks.