Password protection on USB HD

[IBMGEEK]

We just bought 15 500GB seagate FreeAgent external USB hard drives for work. We need to password protect all of them. I put my foot in my mouth and stated I could find a free program to do this. I haven't found any.

The hard drives that had it built in were $25-40 more and weren't Seagates (5 year warranties).

Any body have any idea where to find an app like this? Or one for cheap that we could put on 15 drives.

I have found software to run on my pc, but it has to run from the drive since these are connected to many random machines.

 

[IBMGEEK]

I've tired several of the USB flash programs and they all are locked to a model/brand.
There are several free apps that will lock it but require software to unlock them.

Any ideas?

 

[gigabyte1024]

http://www.truecrypt.org/

Do your homework first or you'll lock yourself out of all your files.
(don't say I didn't warn you)

 

[IBMGEEK]

Does this work with any windows machine? I'm trying it as we speak

 

[gigabyte1024]

it must be installed on each machine.
basically it'll make encrypted partitions on any disk adn you must have the password to open the partition.

 

[IBMGEEK]

Unless I got this wrong it looks like you need to have it installed on every machine you use it on.
I need to have it run off the hard drive, to use on any.

 

[gigabyte1024]

so you want the drive to be inaccesssable unless there is a password, but how can they access the drive to get to the program that's going to ask for the password?

 

[IBMGEEK]

This will be used for hundreds of machine to do backups, and than never used again on it.

 

[gigabyte1024]

This will be used for hundreds of machine to do backups, and than never used again on it.

Maybe you should consider a network solution with NTFS rights.

 

[IBMGEEK]

I have a few flash drives that have software like this but they will not work on other branded drives. I tried...

 

[IBMGEEK]

Maybe you should consider a network solution with NTFS rights.

But we would to be able to login as the user and still use it. We also may use a boot disk with it and would not be on hte network.

 

[IBMGEEK]

Does anyone else have any ideas?

 

[k1pp3r]

Well, that "Free" part is what is holding you back there

Edit: well i take that back, have you looked at http://www.finecrypt.net/

 

[IBMGEEK]

Well, that "Free" part is what is holding you back there

Edit: well i take that back, have you looked at http://www.finecrypt.net/

It doesn't seem that finecrypt will auto run and ask for a password on any machine.

It seems that most of the usb flash keys that come with password protection feature have part at least in the hardware.


I found this one Lockngo http://www.keynesis.com/products/ I can't use the demo to test on my usb drive, it give the error that I have to use the pro edition

Looks like it's $39, but if I can use it on all of them that would work.


The pocket drives that Seagate has have password protection (5gigs), Called Secure Zone but can't find anywhere to download the software to try it on a bigger drive.

 

[unhappy_mage]

You should consider TrueCrypt traveller mode. You'll need Admin rights, though, to let TC install the driver for the encrypted volume.
http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=traveller-mode

 

[IBMGEEK]

You should consider TrueCrypt traveller mode. You'll need Admin rights, though, to let TC install the driver for the encrypted volume.
http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=traveller-mode

Almost all user's have local admin rights, and I also use bart PE daily and may need to use it to access the drive. Everything sounds great other than it leaving a reg key. I will have to do a little testing on it.

Thanks, I believe this may work!