Encrypt and Protect your USB Flash Drive
Today, almost every one owns a USB Flash Drive. You may use it to store documents, programs, photos, music, etc. and I am pretty sure that they are very important to you. Imagine if it gets to the wrong hands? Not good, and this is why I am going to teach you how to encrypt and protect your USB Flash Drive with a free tool called USB Flash Security.
USB Flash Security is very easy to use so if you don't know a lot about computers, don't worry because it's very easy. We will be working with the FREE version and it has a limitation, the USB Flash Drive cannot be bigger than 4 Gigabytes.
What we need:
- USB Flash Drive Less than 4 Gigs & EMPTY (With n0 Files! if you have files there, please move them to your desktop or to another location)
- USB Flash Security (Free Version) *Download Here*
Once you download USB Flash Security, double click the installation icon and a window will appear.Click Next
Keep clicking next and at the end, click Close.
Now that we have installed USB Flash Security, plug in your USB Flash Drive to your computer. Now, go to the desktop and you should see the USB Flash Security icon as shown below:
Double-click the USB Flash Drive icon and the following window will show:
As you can see from the screenshot above, there are two tabs for me but for you there might be more if you have another hard drive or more USB Flash Drives connected to your computer. Make sure you select the correct "tab" and click install. Right after clicking Install you will get the following message:
Before you click "ok" if you have any files in the USB Flash Drive please back them up or move them to another location because once you click "ok", the drive will be formatted. After clicking ok, you will be asked to type your password as shown below:
Depending in your USB Flash Drive size, this could take from a few seconds to a few minutes. Once it's done, you will get the following confirmation message as shown below:
Congrats! You now have an Encrypted and Password Protected USB Flash Drive. Go to "My Computer" and double click your USB Flash Drive icon. Once clicking ok, you will see 2 files as shown below:
Double-click "UsbENter" and right after that you will be asked or your password as shown below:
Depending in your USB Flash Drive size, this could take from a few seconds to a few minutes. Once it's done, you will be able to see your files. The really nice thing is that once you are done working with your files, you "eject" or "unplug" your USB Flash Drive and its protected automatically. I've tested this in Windows XP and Windows 7.
NOTE: You must be able to run .exe files! If you are not, you won't be able to use your flash drive. This might happen in School/College computers.
