Securing a USB Flash Drive

Mr_Mister

superscaper wrote: »

I think truecrypt would be better, much better encryption capability, two stage plausible deniability and it's free.

I installed truecrypt, went through the set up wizard and set a password but when I browse my drives and click on the usb drive, it tells be that the drive is not formatted !!!

superscaper

Have you mounted the usb drive with truecrypt first before trying to access it? If you've encrypted the entire drive I think you have to unencrypt first before you can open it. It would make sense to me that if you haven't mounted and decrypted the drive then it would appear as unformatted.

superscaper

Just to confirm what I said:
http://dailycupoftech.com/creating-a-basic-truecrypt-volume/
see comment #5

spook

superscaper wrote: »

Have you mounted the usb drive with truecrypt first before trying to access it? If you've encrypted the entire drive I think you have to unencrypt first before you can open it. It would make sense to me that if you haven't mounted and decrypted the drive then it would appear as unformatted.

Exactly, unmounted Truecrypt volumes appear unformatted to the operating system, as the volume just looks like random bytes on the disk.

The better way is to keep the existing filesystem intact and store your Truecrypt volume in a file which is slightly smaller than the entire USB drive; this leaves you a bit of room on the drive which you can use to carry a copy of Truecrypt round with you, so you can read your data on other PCs. (Although you do need to have administrative rights to do this).

Mr_Mister

superscaper wrote: »

Have you mounted the usb drive with truecrypt first before trying to access it? If you've encrypted the entire drive I think you have to unencrypt first before you can open it. It would make sense to me that if you haven't mounted and decrypted the drive then it would appear as unformatted.

Yes thats probably what I have done wrong. I'll try again tonight.
Thanks