Encrypting a USB Drive

Intro: Encrypting a USB Drive

I will be walking you through the steps needed to encrypt a USB drive using the free encryption tool TrueCrypt. In this instructable, I will be using a Windows XP system as an example, but TrueCrypt will also run on Linux and OS X.

STEP 1: Materials

For this instructable, you will need the following:

a USB drive
a PC running Windows 2000, XP, or Vista
a copy of TrueCrypt 5.0, which can be downloaded from here

STEP 2: Format the USB Drive

In this example, we will be using an 8 Gb USB drive. If you are using a large USB drive and intend to create an encrypted volume that is larger than 4 Gb, you will need to format the drive with NTFS, as Fat32 cannot support files larger than 4 Gb.

In order to format a removable drive as NTFS, we will need to tweak the settings slightly:

1. Right click on My Computer on the Desktop and choose properties
2. Click on the Hardware Tab
3. Click on the Device Manager Button
4. Click the + symbol next to Disk Drives
5. Select your USB drive
6. Right click and choose properties
7. Click the Policies tab
8. Click the Optimize for performance radio button
9. Click OK and close the Device Manager window
10. Click OK on the System Properties window

Now we will format the drive:
WARNING: Formatting the drive will destroy any data on it (duh)

1. Double click My Computer on the Desktop
2. Select your USB drive
3. Right click and choose Format
4. In the dropdown box under File System, choose NTFS
5. Under Format Options, check the Quick Format checkbox
6. Click the Start button
7. Click OK on the warning dialog
8. Click OK on the Format Complete dialog
9. Click Close on the Format window

STEP 3: Install TrueCrypt on the PC

Run the installer for TrueCrypt that you downloaded in step 1. Unless you have a reason to change them for your machine, the default settings for the install will work just fine.

STEP 4: Configure Traveler Disk Settings

Now we will configure the USB drive as a Traveler Disk. This will place a portable copy of TrueCrypt in an unencrypted portion of the drive so that the encrypted volume can be accessed on systems that do not have TrueCrypt installed.

Note: In order to use the portable copy of TrueCrypt, you need to have administrator rights on the machine. If you do not have administrator rights, TrueCrypt cannot install the needed driver to open the encrypted volume.

1. Start Truecrypt.
2. In the Tools menu, select Traveler Disk Setup
3. In the field below Create traveler disk files, enter the drive letter of the USB drive, in my case E:\
4. In AutoRun Configuration click the Auto-Mount radio button
5. Under TrueCrypt volume to mount, enter the desired volume name, in this example, I used volume. Make sure that you remember what you used here, as we will need it later.
6. Click the Create button
7. Click OK on the Creation dialog

STEP 5: Create the Encrypted Volume

Now we will create the encrypted volume.

1. Click Tools, then select Volume Creation Wizard
2. Click the Create a File Container radio button, then click Next
3. Click the Standard TrueCrypt volume radio button, then click Next
4. Click Select File
5. Browse to the USB drive. You should see the TrueCrypt folder that was created here in the previous step. In the File Name field, enter the SAME volume name that you used in the Traveler settings earlier, then click the Save button.
6. Click Next
7. Click Next
8. On the Volume Size dialog, enter the size in Mb that you want the encrypted partition to be. I like to leave a little extra space so that I can store a few unencrypted files on the drive if I need to. Click Next
9. Enter the password for the encrypted volume twice. If you use a password of less than 20 characters, the installer will complain at you for using a weak password. Click Next.
10. Click the Format button. You will see the volume format for somewhere between 10 minutes and an hour or so, depending on the size of the volume and your machine.
11. Click OK

STEP 6: Mount the Encrypted Volume

There are two ways to mount an encrypted volume, automatically or manually. After using either of these methods, you should see the volume show up as the first available drive letter. You can now use the encrypted volume as you would a normal drive.

Automatically:

This requires that you have autoplay turned on.
1. When you insert the USB drive for the first time, you will see a dialog asking what you want the default action to be, one of the options listed will be Mount TrueCrypt volume. Click this, then click OK.
2. You should now see the TrueCrypt dialog asking you to enter your password. Enter the password then click OK.

Manually:

If you have autoplay turned off, you will need to mount the encrypted volume manually.
1. Start TrueCrypt, then click the Select File button.
2. Browse to your USB drive, select the encrypted volume file, then click OK.
3. Click the Mount button.
4. Enter the password for the encrypted volume, then click OK.

STEP 7: Unmount the Encrypted Volume

To unmount the encrypted volume, right click on the TrueCrypt icon in the tray next to the clock and select Dismount and whichever drive letter the encrypted volume is using, in this case Z:\. Alternately, you can select Dismount All Mounted Volumes.

WARNING:
Remember the NTFS setting that we changed all the way back at the beginning? This Means that you can't just yank out the USB drive when you've shut down the encrypted volume. This is a quick way to corrupt the entire volume.

You need to shut the USB drive down before you remove it. To do this, click on the green arrow in the tray next to the clock and select Safely Remove Hardware, then locate the USB drive in the list and click stop. If you get the device cannot be stopped message, try exiting TrueCryptm then try again. If the device will still not stop, wait 5 minutes, then give it one more try. If it still will not exit, shut down the machine, then remove the USB drive.

Comments

[peterfan]

EasyLock – USB Encryption is the best one. Here is the coupon for it:
couponcode0.com/easylock-usb-encryption-256bit-aes.html

[peterfan]

[sara.juniorjames.7]

USB
encryption is must these days. Person like myself, I carry sensitive
information around and most of the times I forget my USB here and there.
Obviously I would not like my friends or anyone else to peek in. That is the
reason I use encryption and I partcularly use Data Protecto. The software has
been good to me. Its been 3 years now and i have been using this software. I am glad i tried
it. Recommend too. http://www.dataprotecto.com/

[Trent The Thief]

Try an IronKey instead.

http://www.ironkey.com.

Using truecrypt traveller is cool, but having a the built-in tor client and browser, as well as having a tamper-proof device is better.

[ReCreate]

Well,If you got data you never want to be leaked,Like Windows 7 Corporate edition,You may want to put it there.

[ReCreate]

Sure,You gotta love A super encrypted 4MB flash drive,Well,Thats the size that you can afford,Or anyone for that matter.

[rockiesjason]

Gah. Worse and worse. If you enter the wrong password 10 times or "tamper" with the case it self destructs (not sure exactly what this means). I can't have my portable storage bursting into flames every time I set my bag down too hard.

[DrCoolSanta]

That means your pendrive gets formatted. The sole reason I removed it when I got it from the factory in my pendrive. Seriously, if someone else wants to format, he knows how to.

[ReCreate]

you know,You can un-format drives,But i think that is with magnetic storage only

[WTHAI]

No, it actually self destructs. Boom. The memory chip inside jettisons away from the board, disconnecting itself and deleting your files forever.

[DrCoolSanta]

Lol?

[WTHAI]

No man, I'm completely serious. There's also a transmitter in there which informs the company if the self destruct mechanism doesn't work, summoning an Iron Key employee to your house to beat you and the flash drive with a mallet. Then he takes your cash and pets. I'm still recovering from the incident.

[DrCoolSanta]

XP, the next thing I hear is, them sending you a cheeze cake because you sued them for illegally kissing you just because you were able to survive when your pendrive selfdistructed.

[rockiesjason]

That does look interesting. I've not used one, but be cautious with it, as it may not be the magic bullet that you think it is. I know some of the other hardware crypto USB devices have turned out to have very thin and easily crackable implementations. Also tor is not the fully anonymous solution that it's often advertised to be. Additionally, it's wicked expensive. For the cost of their 8gb model, you could go buy TWO 32gb flash drives and apply your own security and apps. However, as I said, I've not used one. It COULD be the greatest thing since sliced spam.

[Trent The Thief]

Hi Rockie, I can absolutely vouch for their ruggedness. Mine has been through the washer/dryer numerous times. The outer case looks like crap, but it functions flawlessly. It is expensive. That is true. However, it is alway proof against bruteforce attacks. The encrypted partition can not be extracted for attack in a hostile computer. A physical attack guarantees that the next time it is powered on that the encrypting hardware that connects to the internal memory fries. Regarding TOR, yes, it isn't absolute proof against attack, but if things are really that serious, one is well and truly hosed and the best thing to do is stay in crowded places :-) It's a convenience factor. Having a built-in firefox and tor client makes it relatively simple to browse from anywhere leaving no tracks on the host computer and serves well for a secure email check. NOTE: LINUX VERSION IS COMING!!!!!

[mweston]

I used to have an Iron Key, but it got too small when I started making videos. Then in the middle of all this forum reading I thought, why the heck would anyone need a TOR encryption and secure web browsing, ect. if all they're using it for is videos or schools files. I mean I can see it if you have important work files (which I had some of) or you were hacking the schools network (which I have done, and now I'm good friends with the tech guy... but thats a different story) but in many cases it wasn't really that useful. But thats just a really long random thought.

[i.am.flink]

Oh, sure. It's not going to be useful for anyone with a need for high-performance external storage. It's intended to hold and maintain a number of files in complete security. The onboard browser and TOR are nice if you are using a public terminal and would like to have a bit more privacy that the local browser provides. I keep quite a bit of private data on mine. I need to have the data on hand and I sure don't want to lose it to a third-party if I drop the drive someplace. I doubt that I'd buy a second one. The 4GB is plenty for what I need.

[mweston]

Get it if you want it (though I have to say the firefox secure browsing is helpul sometimes) anyway for your purpose I would recomment it

[mweston]

Sry, didn't check for spelling - that would be helpful and recommend :-P

[mweston]

Anyway, if you want one, they're great - rugged and file transfer is pretty good. The only reason to get another one is if it was a present or something