Securing a harddisk

Hola, amigos!

Does anyone know of a program that will lock a harddisk? So that you will need a password to access it.

Thanks!

you cannot lock a harddisk by software easily because if you lock the disk there is also no operating system which could ask you for a password.
If you use a laptop or have a very good (=expensive) hard disk controller they may offer something for you. Consult your system manual.

But what you probably want to use is a encrypted disk. It's a big file on your disk which can be loaded as an additional drive (and everything is save encrypted on disk).

There is a freeware program to do this: http://www.scherrer.cc/crypt/ . If you need help to install it, tell me. I'll maybe make a tutorial. But it is not suited for very important data because of the file gets corrupted or you lose your password everything is lost.

alex wrote:

But locking a second HD, internal or external, not the one with the OS on, should be possible.

I'm using PGPDisk for all my drives (without the C: drive, with the OS).

You create a single encrypted file on the clean harddisk and everytime you
want to access the encrypted files in it, you have to enter a passphrase.

Then all what's inside is mounted and accessible as a new drive.

Another program that should do something like that is Drivecrypt.
I heard it can also encrypt the system drive...

Or you use a hardware tool. Abit has something like that (Secure IDE).
You have to insert a key (I think it's an USB-stick) in to the IDE card then
you can access all. But if someone gets the stick too you may get
problems...

The best choice is using something like PGPdisk and then install a program
like VMWare. Then you can install a second OS (Win98, Win2000, Linux
and so on) on the encrypted drive. Then really all is hidden

All the best,
Calahan

I'm using a program called Drive Crypt and Drivecrypt plus. With it I can encrypt an entire hard drive if I want with a variety of different encryption algorithms. It's working out pretty well for me.

Buy an external & a high quality fire safe.

I found a program called BestCrypt. Cost a few bucks, but......
This makes a virtual drive on one of the HD's, up to 4Gb. Looks good and easy to use!