How do you password protect your external drives??
 

What do you use to password protect your external drives?? I don't really need encryption, just something to password protect it.

pretty sure it in the properties. just part of the NTFS operating system. right click on the drive in explorer and look through the options. if you're a mac guy I'm sure it's better, easier and more magnificent in every possible fucking way but I can't tell you how. -bmb

without encryption, anyone can easily just take the drive, mount it on a linux box, and steal all the data with no sweat...

thanks woj, I just looked in xp and I don't see that option anymore. I remember the win 98 I could do that if I remember correctly. so encryption is way to go woj? -bmb

I think encryption is only way since when is disk connected to other machine there is not possible to put protection.

You have to encrypt them if you want them to be secure. And honestly, external drives SHOULD NOT be used for sensitive data simply because they can easily be left somewhere, stolen, damaged, etc. Invest in a file server, NAS unit or something else - or take only the data you need with you on the road. You don't need to take every document you have created on the road with you most likely.

so encryption is the only way to go if you want to protect the data? there's no program out there that can protect it with a simple password no matter where someone tries to connect the drive too - whether it be mac, linux, windows, etc...

yea, you need encryption...

I hope you are trying this on XP Pro, because I'm pretty sure XP Home doesn't have the NTFS admin settings that Pro has.

Win2k would be ideal for this job.

If you can't find the settings in XP, you could use winrar with minimal compression as a slow shitty alternative to password protecting your hard drive.

If it doesn't create too much of a hassle when you do want to connect to it you can just unmount it. The drive won't be visible.

Apple Airport Extreme comes with a USB 2 socket and software to allow you to plug in and daisy chain as many disks as you want. The disks then become net disks, which can be shared (passwordless), or account-linked (password protected) or combinations of. The disks can be within the intranet or exposed to the internet, depending on setup config.

That way the disks can be literally kept behind lock and key.

I use this setup for 4x500GB drives for the family - that way, the whole family gets access to the same disks, while each one having their own private space. Also streams music great to the HiFi with Airport express :2 cents: