Encrypting a USB Stick

[dazthechippy]

Hi Folks, so after years of backing up my laptop to a couple of external hard drives I've now also scanned important documents onto it too and I back that up also.

I backup weekly to the hard drives and every time I scan a new item to the laptop.

I read a saying from an IT disaster recovery chap who said that data doesn't exist until its been backed up twice, that's why I do it like I do..

I store my 2 backups away from the laptop, one in a secure location and one hiding in a plain sight location but I have also started to carry my scanned documents on a USB stick on my keyring also.

None of my backups are encrypted so if lost the HD or USB it would be a goldmine for a thief - you get the picture I'm sure.

Does anyone have a way they encrypt personal information on an external hard drive or USB that they could share with me please?

thanks

[Bad Wombat]

What operating system are you using?

[dazthechippy]

forgot to say that, thanks for the reminder its Windows 2007.

[Bad Wombat]

BitLocker is the obvious one to go for. It's from Microsoft and is built into Windows from Vista upwards. See here & here for details. There is a catch depending on exactly which edition of Windows you are running. You can't create a BitLockered external drive on anything less than the Enterprise and Ultimate editions of Windows Vista and Windows 7. I found myself in this position couple of weeks ago as I run Windows 7 Home Edition. The solution for me was simply to 'BitLocker' the USB drive in another machine running Windows 7 Enterprise Edition. From then on everything works as you'd expect - reading and writing the encrypted drive on any PC at least Windows Vista.

[Hoipoloi]

I use Truecrypt but it's not supported any longer. BitLocker is an alternative.
http://truecrypt.sourceforge.net/

[Bosworth]

I use the last but one version of TrueCrypt. 6.3a if I remember correctly. Easily findable online. I wouldn't trust MS in the slightest.

[dazthechippy]

thanks all, going to check these out at the weekend, happy prepping !

[ggc]

I've been using this for the past year or so

http://www.rohos.com/products/rohos-disk-encryption/

It's free and quite easy to install. Well worth a look

[Wolfman]

I've been using USBSafeguard, they give a free version that covers USB's up to 2GB, above that theres the full version which they offer a trial copy for free which gives you 100 uses before you have to buy it. it runs directly from the USB so can be accessed by any PC/Laptop. 100 attempts is more than enough for something that for me is only likely to be accessed in an emergency / yearly updating. If I'm still using it in 100 years I'll gladly pay for the full version!