Hard drive encryption is an integral step for anyone looking to secure their data. It is a process which will go a step beyond regular password security and will ensure that a hard drive remain secure only to the user. However, it is important to note that once a hard drive is encrypted, ITS can not remove the encryption so any files that cannot be accessed may remain that way until the user themselves can access them.
There are both paid and free software for OSX and WIndows, this guide will focus mainly on OSX 10.6 and above and Windows 7 and above.macOS and Windows and they are listed below.
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| Note: Drive encryption may require you to format your drive |
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1.OSX 10.8 Disk Encryption (free)
OSX 10.8 (Mountain Lion) provides an easy and very simple way for users to encrypt their external drives.
To encrypt a drive on OSX Mountain Lion, simply right click the drive, either in the finder window or on your desktop.
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In versions 10.6 and 10.7 drive encryption should be accessible in the Disk Utility which can be found in your Applications/Utilities Folder. This drive encryption will ask you to erase your drive.
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From here select the Encrypt option.
You will be presented with this window. Here, you can type the password you want to set for your drive and a hint that may help you remember it.
Remember: If you forget your password you will NOT be able to access your drive in any way.
Type in your password and hint and press Encrypt Disk
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Note: If you run into this error, use this fix to correct it. This WILL erase your drive. Open up the Disk Utility in your Applications/Utilities folder, select your drive and click on the partition tab
Click options to select "GUID Partition Table" and click apply. |
When you press Encrypt Disk you will not see a progress bar or any sort of indication that the encryption process has begun. However, it is important that you DO NOT remove your drive until the process has finished. Depending on your drive, it may take a span of 3 minutes to 1 hour to encrypt the drive, the larger the drive the longer the wait. Be patient!
To check whether your drive has been encrypted or not, simply right click on the drive in your finder or your desktop and press Get Info.
You will see that under the drive description it now says Encrypted.
Now if you remove your drive and re-insert it, OSX will ask for a password.
2.BitLocker (free)
BitLocker is Windows' built in hard drive encryption software. It works on Windows Vista, 7, and 8. This guide will be using Windows 8 but the directions are mostly the same on all 3 operating systems.
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| which would result in data loss. Always back up data prior to performing a reformat. |
Apple FileVault
Use FileVault to encrypt your Mac
Microsoft Windows BitLocker
Alternative Encrypting Applications.
If the default operating system encryption methods don't work for you or you want something a little more secure or efficient, there are a few other third-party applications out there for your convenience. Some recommendations include:
Link to GNU Privacy Guard web page (Windows, OSX, Linux) - Free
Link to 7-Zip web page (Windows) - Free
Link to AxCrypt web site (Windows) - Free
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Please note that opting for a third-party encryption application may result in you needing to work specifically with the developer for assistance if something happens with the encryption where you cannot access or locate your data. ITS is not responsible for any data lost or encrypted in a way that makes it unusable. |