password protect usb drives in win10 pro

[caddi daddi]

I carry a usb stick with personal stuff on it to my shop and with my memory I tend to leave it plugged in there till I need it.
is there a way to just password protect usb drives in win10 pro.
I don't need anything fancy nor bullet proof, with my memory passwords are hard to remember and encryption is not something I really want.
nothing really secret on them but the people in the office don't really need to know the bee told me to stop at the store and pick up my foot spray........

 

[EarthDog]

Good question...never done it before....https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-password-protect-your-usb-stick-3-easy-ways/

One of many i found when looking up 'how to password protect usb sticks'. The rest are below.

https://www.google.com/search?q=pas...droid-verizon&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

Encryption seems like a part of it regardless when looking at these links.

Unfortunately, you cannot simply password protect your entire USB stick, like you can password protect your PC or phone. Tools that will seriously protect your data all work with encryption. Unless you want to invest in a secure flash drive with hardware encryption, you can use freeware applications to achieve a similar level of protection.

 

[caddi daddi]

everything I have found encrypts, even third party software.

 

[EarthDog]

Whats your hang up on encryption?

 

[caddi daddi]

I work crossplatform, will bitlocker encryption decrypt under Linux?
this is more stuff I know nothing about.

 

[EarthDog]

Not sure.. i dont linux. A quick trip to the web yielded... : https://superuser.com/questions/376533/how-to-access-a-bitlocker-encrypted-drive-in-linux

 

[caddi daddi]

good find with a good link in that thread ED.
let me contact my software venders and discuss installing disklocker, most of my software uses some form of integrated encryption so there might be conflicts.

 

[HankB]

One guideline regarding security is that convenience and security are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Or in other words, you can increase security but it is not going to be as convenient.

My second comment is that a password is likely going to imply encryption. I'm not aware that any OS provides a way to log in to a USB device the way you would log into a PC or cell phone. (Logging in is the one place I can think of where a password is not associated with encryption.)

At the convenient end of the 'protection' spectrum, you might consider hidden directories as described here. That would prevent someone from casually looking at your files. No password is involved. The article describes a couple ways to view the hidden files/directories w/out turning off the hidden attribute.

At the opposite end of the spectrum is encryption. Veracrypt is open source, free (as in beer and freedom.) It's supported by Windows, Linux, MacOS I have only dabbled with it and cannot comment on how easy it is to use on Windows. AFAIK it does require a password, but if this is for casual security, you can make that a simple one. If you do forget the password, your data is gone.

... the people in the office don't really need to know the bee told me to stop at the store and pick up my foot spray........

Agreed. I'm not sure we need to know either!

 

[caddi daddi]

two venders say no to encryption software so that's out.
I find it a bit odd we used to be able to simply password protect a drive or a folder, I wonder why they have taken that out.

 

[EarthDog]

You cant do individual folders w/o encryption?

 

[caddi daddi]

not that I know of.

 

[EarthDog]

What about zipping the folder and adding a PW that way?

 

[caddi daddi]

just tried that.
to do that I would have to set up users and groups and that's just a bit more than I really want to get into and this is the most accessed rig I have.
Miss Hannah whacked me with one of those DOH!!!!! moments today, we use team viewer all the time, just leave my shopping list on my home office machine, it's on 24/7, nobody but me knows the team viewer password, DOH!!!!!!

 

[EarthDog]

You have to setup users and groups??? Winzip or 7zip makes you do that????

 

[caddi daddi]

not being an expert with 7zip, I don't see an option to password protect the test file.

 

[EarthDog]

Maybe 7zip doesnt let you....the next obvious question....what about winrar?

Edit: a quick search yielded 7z does pw protect, but seems to also need encryption.

 

[caddi daddi]

I didn't see it under right click/compress file, I'll look again tonight before I uninstall it.
how does encryption effect other file types other than text, like photos and video?
I know a local photographer lost all of her photos when her external hard drive died and it was encrypted and the rescue people could do nothing for her, but that was geek squad.
I found another drive of the same part number and swapped the disks and she could access it with her password again but were her photos degraded due to encryption?

 

[EarthDog]

Not sure... always have back ups though!

 

[caddi daddi]

under the add to archive it has the option to add a password while encrypting.
time to look at WinRAR.

 

[caddi daddi]

not with winrar that I can find.