How To Encrypt A USB Drive

(Precursor - Before I get flamed please note the flash drive used in this hub was a Corsair 4GB Voyager. Not all flash drives will take the same amount of time to format and encrypt due to size and read speed.)

Personal storage continues to get easier as technology progresses and flash drives aka gig sticks, thumb drives, jump drives etc continue to saturate the market. We are now able to carry gigs of information and files in a small little device that has changed the way data storage works.

It is great to be able to carry or backup data to something that is small and takes up almost no space, something you can throw in your pocket or around your neck. But there does lie an inherent risk depending on what exactly you are backing up to these drives.

Many if not all flash drives have no built in security system or encryption on them with the exception of a very few and very expensive flash drives. You may not think it's worth your time to encrypt your flash drive but the little effort it takes could save you trouble in the future.

So who is this really for? This is for people who store sensitive or personal information on their flash drive or work in an environment of prying eyes. This is also for people who are always losing things and then those who are just paranoid. To me I define sensitive data as anything that has enough information on that could be useful in the wrong hands.

So what you will need to encrypt your flash drive are:

• Truecrypt - http://www.truecrypt.org/downloads
• A flash drive / Gig Stick / Thumb Drive etc..
• A computer with a working USB port

Let's scramble some data shall we:

1. Install Truecrypt software and run it.
2. Plug in your flash drive to your working USB port
3. If you have files already on your flash drive copy them over to your hard drive for the time being because we will be formatting shortly.
4. Open Truecrypt and click on Create Volume
5. Click on Encrypt a non-system partition/drive (The one in the middle)
6. Click Standard Truecrypt volume and click next.
7. Select your device and in my case it was Removable Disk2: \Device\Harddisk2\Partition1 make sure to also verify that the device you are looking at is the correct size of the flash drive and click Next. (I am using a 4GB flash drive for this so it would read 3.8GB in size)
8. Now select Create encrypted volume and format it. (PRE-WARNING: This will destroy ALL data that is on your flash drive)
9. Choose your encryption algorithm. Personally I prefer 3 layers of protection because I have seen AES cracked rather easily.
10. Set your Hash Algorithm or leave it as default.
11. Click Next for the next two screens.
12. Enter your password you will be using from here on out to access your flash drive. Any password under 20 characters will generate a warning.
13. Confirm your password and click Next.
14. Use the default settings in the Volume format section and once your ready click Format. (WARNING: This will destroy ALL data that is on your flash drive.)
15. You will be prompted with a warning and click Yes to continue.
16. The format process will begin. Depending on the size of your flash drive it could take longer for it to format and encrypt as each one is different.
17. Once the format is complete be sure to READ the popup dialog and lick OK.
18. Now click exit.
19. Congratulations your flash drive is fully encrypted!

That wasn't too tough was it? Now you need to learn how to access it. Since flash drive is encrypted Windows will no longer mount it. It will show up in your "My Computer" section but when you click on it to access it you will be prompted with a format box. If you click format you will lose your entire encryption and will have to start back over.

So the way you access your newly encrypted flash drive is like this. Make sure Truecrypt is running on your computer. Make sure your flash drive is plugged in and open Truecrypt and highlight a drive letter then select Auto-Mount Devices. Enter the password you used earlier to mount the flash drive.

Now you can goto "My Computer" or "Computer" in Windows 7 and access your flash drive just like normal. Copy the files back onto the drive you removed from it earlier. Now once your done transferring files over to it go back to Truecrypt and highlight your drive letter and select Dismount. This will close the flash and prevent it from being readable without the proper password.

There is a catch though with going this route. The computer you accessing your flash drive on needs to have Truecrypt running on it. If you plug it into a computer without it you will once again be presented with a format screen.

Keep your self safe and your data safe with these free and easy tools. As always thanks for reading!

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