Question about External HD (no problem)

I treated myself to a 2gb External HD for $90 today and want to backup alot of files. Some of my files are medical records, tax information and other personal (should be private) documents. Is there anyway to create a password protected part of the EHD? I have PartionMagic and was wondering if its worth using and if its possible for it to create a separated password protected part of the drive.

I own a USB 4gb that came with a software installed on it that allowed for me to split the drive into a password protected folder (like running a program). Anything similar to this I can use to maybe create a ummm 500GB password protected partion on this EHD?

 

Use can use Truecrypt to create an encrypted container volume that you can store files to. I would recommend that you still create another backup of your important data and save it offsite if it is important to you. The hard drive could always fail or the encrypted volume could become corrupted.

Use the instructions here. You have to run truecrypt in an admin account because of the driver.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/encrypt-your-usb-stick-with-truecrypt-60/

Even though a USB flash drive is shown the same intructions will apply to your external drive.

 

OK thanks ill look into that. The flash drive I was talking about is a Verbatim. It has a option for a public zone and a private zone. Will the software you recommended do the same thing?

 

The software that the Flash Drive uses can be bought @ encryptstick.com. Have you ever heard of this software and is it reliable?

 

Yes, Truecrypt will do the same thing as what is on your USB drive but it will not be as user friendly. I would recommend that after reading the link I gave, also read the truecrypt documentation. What you do not want to do is create a encrypted drive. You only want to create an encrypted container as mentioned in my link. I never heard of the software for your USB flash drive so I cannot comment on that. I have used Truecrypt to encrypt a portion of my USB flash drive and have had no problems.

What Truecrypt does is create a file of a size you give it on the external or USB drive. It is actually a encrypted container. When you give it the password, Truecrypt will mount the container as another drive and you will see another drive letter in Computer. You can then copy or move files into this new drive which represents the container file you created. By placing all of the Truecrypt files on the USB external drive as mentioned in the link, you can take your external drive to any other computer and as long as you have admin rights, you would be able to access the encrypted data on your external drive.