Password Protection Software for internal HDD

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aj84763

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Jan 31, 2014
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Hi Folks,

I'm looking for a software program for Internal HDD password protection for the second HDD I have installed into my laptop. I don't want a encryption tool such as true encrypt because that take s forever and requires you to have it installed on every system you connect the drive to. I just need a simple program which will ask for the password whenever someone tries to access that specific drive. I need a program which applies the password protection to the drive itself, so I can copy and paste said files to another drive if need be and they wont be password locked. also need one that wont format the drive, and does not create a specific protected folder as I already have 400GB worth of stuff on there so I wont be able to create a folder large enough. Example I tried to use safe house but that creates its own specific folder within the drive and I don't have a large enough space to allocate for it.

Thanks.
 
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Someone Somewhere

Someone Somewhere

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Sep 23, 2012
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What you're asking for either isn't possible, or would be so insecure it would take seconds to bypass.

You can set up truecrypt so it doesn't need to be installed, just run as a file, like portable apps. However, you'd either need to have the truecrypt files on a separate USB stick, or remove almost everything from the drive and make an encrypted file almost the size of the disk.
 
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aj84763

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Jan 31, 2014
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Really? There's so many programs out there for a external drive so why is internal drives so difficult? I need it as a internal drive because were moving the laptop around all the time, and for some reason every time we move the laptop the HDD disconnects no matter which port were using. Obviously the cables still plugged in, its the USB ports are so sensitive even just picking it up and putting it down right were it was is enough movement to disconnect it. I thought it was the cable so I replaced it, still same problem. Its not the computer either as it happens on all my laptops. I even tried a new enclosure and its still doing it. Already corrupted 2 of my drives because of this, every time I hook them up they can no longer be read by anything.

truecrypts really not practical for me, according to the setup guide it takes half a hour per 10GBs to encrypt, so to encrypt a 500GB HDD, is going to take far too long. Also every time you want to use a particular file on there you need to decrypt , than re encrypt it dont you?

Another solution would be deleting the drive letter allocated to the drive,that way it is not visible to anyone. But if I do that wont it stop programs on that drive from running properly? I've got all my programming compilers and work on there so would I still be able to read and write to the drive even though I have removed the drive letter?
I tried to hide the files through the security tab on the HDD so only my user would see the drive, but that only partly fixes the problem if I forget to log out or whatever its still accessible. If you lock the computer so your at the login screen and need to enter the password to get back in does that stop the internet and programs still running? Might try that see if it partly solves the problem.
 
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Someone Somewhere

Someone Somewhere

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Sep 23, 2012
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Really? There's so many programs out there for a external drive
Click to expand...
Which ones are you thinking of?

Already corrupted 2 of my drives because of this, every time I hook them up they can no longer be read by anything.
Click to expand...
Format them. If it's just corruption, that will do it. Then use one of them, and your first encryption will be faster, because you're reading from one drive and writing to the other. At least twice the speed of an in place encryption.

truecrypts really not practical for me, according to the setup guide it takes half a hour per 10GBs to encrypt, so to encrypt a 500GB HDD,
Click to expand...
That guide can be quite outdated, and it depends on the drive.

Also every time you want to use a particular file on there you need to decrypt , than re encrypt it dont you?
Click to expand...
Transparent encryption. It decrypts it as programs ask for it, then encrypts as the file is written to disk. It's faster if your CPU has built-in AES-NI though.

If you lock the computer so your at the login screen and need to enter the password to get back in does that stop the internet and programs still running? Might try that see if it partly solves the problem.
Click to expand...
Hitting 'switch user' or 'lock screen' will leave programs and internet, but anyone can walk away with the disk and get everything easily.

Simply put, if it's not encrypted, it's a ten second job to get around any security.
 
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aj84763

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Jan 31, 2014
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Cant remember specifically the names of the programs but i know Sony had one I tried to install but it only does external drives. I did a google search before posting this and found tons of them. As for the corrupted drives I cant format them because windows cannot detect them, when you plug them in the light on the enclosure lights up but nothing else happens. I tried putting them directly into my laptop and they can be read that way fine, but connecting them via USB for some reason nothing can read them. I didn't want to format them when I plugged them in directly because I haven't had a chance to back them up yet once I do I'll try format them that way. I just don't particularly want to go spend 100 bucks on another HDD just so I can back it all up. Already had to buy 2 replacements when those broke so I think I've thrown enough money at this.

I gave truencrypt a try today on my 8GB sandisk flashdrive and to encrypt 2GB worth of files almost took 3 hours. Might have to find a self encrypting external drive by the looks of it, because to constantly have to decrypt and encrypt a file every time I use it is going to send me to the funny farm. Wish Sandisk and co would hurry up and release 500GB flash drives at affordable prices already, would make life so much easier. Funny how I can have a USB drive and it never disconnects, but whenever I use a external HDD it always does.
 
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Someone Somewhere

Someone Somewhere

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Sep 23, 2012
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Many USB sticks are seriously slow.

After the initial encryption, encrypting and decrypting is done on the fly, and in my experience leads to no noticeable performance hit.

I've never had trouble with external HDDs randomly disconnecting (unless they are high power 7200RPM 2.5" drives on USB2.0 connections, when they can overload the port).

NAND costs money to make. Deal with it. Prices are dropping at ridiculous rates already. Or get a 512GB SSD and put it in a case.

It sounds like your windows installation is getting a bit bloated; might be time for a rebuild.
 
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aj84763

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Jan 31, 2014
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I tried encrypting my smaller 120GBHDD, that took 6 hours each time and twice once its finished its come up with errors saying cannot mount the volume, formatting cannot continue, s error occurred when mounting the volume, failed to create volume. What does that normally mean?
 
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fzabkar

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Sep 22, 2010
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I would recommend that you freeze-lock the drive after unlocking it. This will disable additional security related commands until the next power cycle. The reason for this is to prevent malware from setting its own password on your drive. I suspect that BIOS will have already freeze-locked your boot drive.
 
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