What options do I have for encryption?

[Vitte]

I'm looking to purchase a new notebook, Windows 8.1, but it appears I have limited options for encryption. I just want something to protect my drive, I've been thinking about it for the longest time, and it really hit me recently because my neighbors house was broken into yesterday and they stole his computer along with other items.

I know there is BitLocker for 8.1 Pro, but that adds $100; plus BitLocker requires TPM. How can you find out if a computer has TPM? It appears to be limited to buisness class notebooks, which is a problem because that adds up to hundreds of dollars more. Does Toshiba L and S series notebooks have TPM... it appears not.

TrueCryp will not work on GPT platforms. I'm not that good at computers, so I really do not want to resort to manipulation but would rather run Windows 8 as it was intended.

BestCrypt is expensive also.

DiskCryptor has issues with Windows 8.

Am I SOL? Why doesn't Microsoft care about security?

 

[SuperSVGA]

TPM is not required for BitLocker but without it you need to enter a password every time you start up.

You can use TrueCrypt but you have to convert your hard drive to GPT and disable SecureBoot. But this takes more work and you could mess it up if you do it wrong.

I do not know of any other free encryption solutions.