How do I encrypt a whole (external) USB harddisc (under Win2000 and WinXP)?

How do I encrypt a whole (external) USB harddisc (under Win2000 and WinXP)?
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Subject Author Date
How do I encrypt a whole (external) USB harddisc (under Win2000 and WinXP)? Frank Callone 07-11-2005
Posted by Frank Callone on July 11, 2005, 1:13 pm
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Occasionally I connect an external USB harddisc to my computer in order to
backup serveral
directories. This works fine. However I would like to encrypt the whole USB
harddisc?

What is the best solutions?

I would like to connect to the USB harddisc under Win2000 and WinXP.
The Harddisc is NTFS formatted.

Is Microsofts EFS encrytion system stable?

What other tools are recommendable (under Windows)?
What about BestCrypt and DriveCrypt?

The most important criterias for me are stability and reliability.

Speed and costs are second order.

Frank



Posted by K_F on July 11, 2005, 7:57 am
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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

>Occasionally I connect an external USB harddisc to my computer in order to
>backup serveral
>directories. This works fine. However I would like to encrypt the whole USB
>harddisc?
>
>What is the best solutions?
>
>I would like to connect to the USB harddisc under Win2000 and WinXP.
>The Harddisc is NTFS formatted.
>
>Is Microsofts EFS encrytion system stable?
>
>What other tools are recommendable (under Windows)?
>What about BestCrypt and DriveCrypt?
>
>The most important criterias for me are stability and reliability.
>
>Speed and costs are second order.
>
>Frank

Have you looked into truecrypt ( http://truecrypt.sf.net/ ) ?
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Posted by Steven L Umbach on July 11, 2005, 11:05 am
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I find that EFS works well as long as the user follows best practices which
also involves backing up the users EFS certificate/private key to a .pfx
file protected by a password for safe keeping. Keep in mind that as long as
the EFS private key is on the computer operating system that the encryption
is only as strong as the users password for XP Pro. In Windows 2000 it is
possible to access EFS files if you can logon to the computer and reset the
users or Recovery Agent [required for W2K] password with one of those free
password reset utility disks assuming the user/RA EFS private key is on the
computer. The biggest problem I see with EFS is careless users losing
permanent access to their own EFS files. Most likely EFS files encrypted on
XP Pro will not be readable on a Windows 2000 computer because XP Pro SP1
and later uses a stronger encryption method than Windows 2000 for EFS. ---
Steve

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;223316&sd=tech

> Occasionally I connect an external USB harddisc to my computer in order to
> backup serveral
> directories. This works fine. However I would like to encrypt the whole
> USB harddisc?
>
> What is the best solutions?
>
> I would like to connect to the USB harddisc under Win2000 and WinXP.
> The Harddisc is NTFS formatted.
>
> Is Microsofts EFS encrytion system stable?
>
> What other tools are recommendable (under Windows)?
> What about BestCrypt and DriveCrypt?
>
> The most important criterias for me are stability and reliability.
>
> Speed and costs are second order.
>
> Frank
>




Posted by vedaal on July 11, 2005, 3:56 pm
If you were  Registered and logged in, you could reply and use other advanced thread options
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

Frank Callone wrote:

> Occasionally I connect an external USB harddisc to my
computer in order to backup serveral
> directories. This works fine. However I would like to encrypt
the whole USB harddisc?
>
> What is the best solutions?
>
> I would like to connect to the USB harddisc under Win2000 and
WinXP.
> The Harddisc is NTFS formatted.

use truecrypt
http://www.truecrypt.org/

caveats:
[1] it is necessary to have truecrypt either installed on your
computer, or in a traveler mode
(easily fits on a single floppy)

[2] if truecrypt is in traveler mode,
there will be registry entries on the host computer when the
truecrypt container is mounted

[3] truecrypt does not yet support encryption to a
key/smartcard/etc.
(this is 'planned for' in the future, but not yet available,
here is the site for planned updates/feature requests, etc.:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/truecrypt/ )

[4] there is no 'easy' ability to see what passphrase you are
typing,
(there is a hack tool floating around somewhere [afaik, windows
systems only],
that will allow you to see the plaintext that is masked by
asterisks, (for 'any' passphrase entry window in any windows
application,)
but this is useful only 'after' it is already typed in


otherwise,
truecrypt really works very nicely, quickly, and reliably


vedaal


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Posted by Iolaos on July 11, 2005, 4:57 pm
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inn200@hotmail.com (Frank Callone) wrote:
>
> Occasionally I connect an external USB harddisc to my computer
in order to backup serveral
> directories. This works fine. However I would like to encrypt
the whole USB harddisc?
>
> What is the best solutions?
>
> I would like to connect to the USB harddisc under Win2000 and
WinXP.
> The Harddisc is NTFS formatted.
>
> Is Microsofts EFS encrytion system stable?
>
> What other tools are recommendable (under Windows)?
> What about BestCrypt and DriveCrypt?

Both work fine.
DriveCrypt has some annoying validation/authentication features,
and is now run by a guy with a felony fraud conviction in
Germany (which might make him vulnerable to pressure from the
Authorities).

Truecrypt is free and open source, has all the features of the
others, and has worked fine for me since its inception.
That would be my choice.

> The most important criterias for me are stability and
reliability.

All the ones I've tried show no speed penalty.
At the moment, PGP9 has some bugs; previous versions worked fine.


> Speed and costs are second order.




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