Can I put a password on a USB Flash Drive?

buglawton

That's an issue with Truecrypt, you cannot be sure which drive letters it will open up each time. If Autorun fails to work (even though you did set it up) then just go to My Computer, then either a) Right click on the drive with the blue Truecrypt icon and select 'Autorun', or if no Autorun option seen, b) click on the drive to open it and drag your partition file (the big one, as named e.g 'My Volume' during the Truecrypt setup) onto the blue Truecrypt icon. Once password has been entered, your protected drive should open up, if it does not then again go to My Computer and look for a new drive (in my case it happens to be F).

tradetime

Ok if you put your USB pen in your computer, the computer will assign it a drive letter, in your case, seems like it is E if you do that and browse the USB drive using windoes explorer you should see something like the picture in Step Five of the tutorial
At the very least you should have the Folde Called TrueCrypt and the funny looking symbol on the end, named whatever you named it, it looks funny because it is encrypted and windows cannot identify it. Do you have something like that?

DCFC79

You can buy a usb pen drive which requires you to enter a password once you plug the device into a usb port

tradetime

buglawton wrote: »

That's another issue with Truecrypt, you cannot be sure which drive letters it will open up each time. If Autorun fails to work (even though you did set it up) then just go to My Computer, then either a) Right click on the drive with the blue Truecrypt icon and select 'Autorun', or if no Autorun option seen, b) click on the drive to open it and drag your partition file (the big one, as named during the Truecrypt setup) onto the blue Truecrypt icon. Once password has been entered, your protected drive should open up, if it does not then again go to My Computer and look for a new drive (in my case it happens to be F).

Personally I would not setup autorun, but that's me. I have used TrueCrypt a lot, but not for this purpose so I am working it out as I go, and I don't have a USB flash to follow step by step, but, if the setup is created as per the tutorial you will have a TrueCrypt container (lets say you have a 4GB flash drive) of 3GB and un-encrypted area of 1GB
In the un-encrypted area you will have your TrueCrypt program folder.
So you plug in your USB and browse to it in windows, open the Truecrypt folder and double click Truecrypt.exe this opens the control panel or UI of the program, you then click to highlight a drive name from the list in the UI, obviously not one that your computer uses already, so X, Y, or Z work well you then hit "select file" and point it at the encrypted container on the usb and hit open. The file box will close and the path will be listed in the UI next to the select button. Now hit mount and you will be asked for the password
When entered the file is unencrypted and appears as another drive in My computer

10past6

tradetime wrote: »

you should see something like the picture in Step Five of the tutorial,Do you have something like that?

Yes, I have what's at the end of step 5

Hold on, I'll take a screen shot of what I have

10past6

OK, this is what I have showing:

tradetime

10past6 wrote: »

OK, this is what I have showing:

Ok, bit more than I was expecting to see
That file "Personal" size 1024KB or 1 megabyte looks like a small encrypted container.
I also now understand why you could not find TrueCrypt.exe on your system it is simply TrueCrypt as you are setup to hide file extensions (ie the .exe bit)
Are you sorted now or still need a little help?

buglawton

Is the file called 'Personal' the one you set up to be your encrypted area?
If so, just drag it onto the Truecrypt icon. This should prompt you for your password. Once done, click the Mount button.

10past6

tradetime wrote: »

Are you sorted now or still need a little help?

I'm sorry for taking your time, but it's not asking me for a password when I insert the USB.

You know that file "personal" that I have, well I created that when asked to do so, I put personal instead of my volume durung set up.

I just follow directions none of it makes sense to me I'm afraid, I think I'm to old to understand anything to do with technology

10past6

buglawton wrote: »

Is the file called 'Personal' the one you set up to be your encrypted area?

Yes buglawton, but inside that file it does not have my personal docs.