dagwoood Posted June 17, 2006 Report Share Posted June 17, 2006 I've been looking for some s/w that would allow me to password protect a USB flash drive but I can't seem to find any freeware offerings.My drive didn't come with any sort of security s/w, so I've been looking for any type of generic s/w that will allow me to protect the drive in case I loose it. I don't want to encrypt the entire contents of the drive, just something that when I(or anyone)tries to access the drive, you get prompted for a password.Cheers, dagwoood. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benb Posted June 17, 2006 Report Share Posted June 17, 2006 dagwoood : That is not possible. Encryption is the only way for password protection. It is actually impossible to password protect but not encrypt the drive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dagwoood Posted June 17, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 17, 2006 Thanks for that benb. It's probably why I couldn't find any s/w to do this Ok, so I can't password protect the drive itself, but what if I put my documents in 1 folder, are there any utilities that will let me password protect/encrypt a folder? I currently use Steganos LockNote to protect/encrypt text documents, but you can't use it for folders :( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boris Posted June 17, 2006 Report Share Posted June 17, 2006 Not tried doing it myself - but how about these two ? - both freewarehttp://www.trinityfiles.com/soft/Security-...ls/abc-lock.htmhttp://www.brothersoft.com/security/passwo...tion_38576.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Belatucadrus Posted June 17, 2006 Report Share Posted June 17, 2006 Some options 1: U-storage.exe available via the "Software" download link. Can either split the USB drive into two partitions, one secure & one open access. Or as one secure password access drive. It's a bit of generic software used by several USB key suppliers and works on all of them as far as I know.2:Cryptainer LE3:Truecrypt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dagwoood Posted June 17, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 17, 2006 Thanks for the links Belatucadrus B) U-storage wont run for some reason; it's saying it can't detect a drive.Cryptainer LE will only let you create a 25MB encrypted volume; I want to put about 300MB of data on my drive.Truecrypt's not really what I'm after because you can't encrypt the data and then access the drive on another machine(unless Truecrypt is installed).Thanks again, dagwoood. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Belatucadrus Posted June 17, 2006 Report Share Posted June 17, 2006 it can't detect a drive.Did you have the USB key plugged in at the time ? As that's the message it shows when the key's unplugged. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dagwoood Posted June 17, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 17, 2006 Did you have the USB key plugged in at the time ? As that's the message it shows when the key's unplugged.Yes, it was plugged in. That's why I couldn't understand the error message Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dagwoood Posted June 17, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 17, 2006 Not tried doing it myself - but how about these two ? - both freewarehttp://www.trinityfiles.com/soft/Security-...ls/abc-lock.htmhttp://www.brothersoft.com/security/passwo...tion_38576.htmlSorry Boris, I missed your post. I followed both your links and the s/w doesn't do what I'm looking to do. They both look like they're only suitable to encrypt/protect files on a pc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dagwoood Posted June 18, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 18, 2006 I have found some s/w that'll password protect the drive :)I had already looked on the site of the manufacturer of my drive, but for my drive there isn't any protection s/w shown. But I re-visited the site and had a look if there was any s/w for different models and I found some that works.You can get if from here Dane-elec , under the heading Password utility software. It may work on other makes of drive.Thanks everyone for the help, dagwoood. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarecrow Man Posted June 18, 2006 Report Share Posted June 18, 2006 I use CruzerLock on my Sandisk flash drive. I dont know if it will work on any other brand, but may be worth a try.Make sure you backup all data before trying this incase it locks you out.http://www.sandisk.com/Retail/Default.aspx?CatID=1274Also be sure to check Microsoft USB Flash Drive Manager. Quite a handy app. (does backups and more)http://www.microsoft.com/windows/partnerpack/desc/ufd.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Belatucadrus Posted June 18, 2006 Report Share Posted June 18, 2006 Weird, my original version of u-storage was for a generic dane elec cheepo from ebuyer. Wonder why there is such incompatibility with USB drives and password programmes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dagwoood Posted June 18, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 18, 2006 I use CruzerLock on my Sandisk flash drive. I dont know if it will work on any other brand, but may be worth a try.Make sure you backup all data before trying this incase it locks you out.http://www.sandisk.com/Retail/Default.aspx?CatID=1274Also be sure to check Microsoft USB Flash Drive Manager. Quite a handy app. (does backups and more)http://www.microsoft.com/windows/partnerpack/desc/ufd.htmThanks for the links Scarecriw Man :) I'm reluctant to try some more different s/w as I've now got it working as I want it to. Thanks you though, it's appreciated.Weird, my original version of u-storage was for a generic dane elec cheepo from ebuyer. Wonder why there is such incompatibility with USB drives and password programmes.I agree with you on that Belatucadrus that it's weird, especially as on the Dane-Elec site they offer their own version of U-storage for some of their drives.It occurred to me whether I would've got the s/w to work if I had chosen to "Open as a Portable Media Device". I'm not feeling brave enough at the moment to see if that would work though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Belatucadrus Posted June 28, 2006 Report Share Posted June 28, 2006 Remora USB guard is another option, should anybody else want something similar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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