Installing VeraCryptĭownload VeraCrypt from its primary site. If someone does walk away with the drive, they’ll have a nice, empty-looking drive they can do whatever they want with – except access the encrypted data. Once mounted, it operates like any other drive, until you shut down the computer or explicitly dismount the drive, at which point it again appears to be an empty drive. When you encrypt an entire drive, it initially looks like an empty, unformatted drive containing “RAW” data. To access the contents of the drive, you must first “ mount” it, providing the proper pass phrase to enable its unencrypted access. In a forehead-slapping moment, I realized I was going about this all wrong.

If that conveniently small, portable drive walked off in someone’s pocket, they’d have access to a lot of my stuff. Some of the data on that drive is encrypted in various ways, but the vast majority is completely unencrypted. Some time ago, I realized the external hard drive I carry with me when traveling was an easy thing to lose.

Encrypting external hard drive