Unable to encrypt / password USB

[anonymous-user]

[redacted]

[bigandclever]

Is the Encrypting service running?

[mmm-five]

What are you trying to encrypt it with?

• software that came on the USB stick
• a hardware chip in the USB stick
• Windows BitLocker
• Truecrypt/Veracrypt
• other

[Road2Ruin]

The easiest thing to donwoild probably be zip the files into a password protected zip and drag and drop onto the USB stick.

[xeny]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Windows Home edition and it doesn't support bitlockering USB driives?

[bigandclever]

xeny said:

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Windows Home edition and it doesn't support bitlockering USB driives?

I preferred Captain_morgan's now-deleted sarcastic post .. we have to guess the OS. Can't be too secure!

[bigandclever]

Details are important for troubleshooting.

[Captain_Morgan]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Where there are many different os’s, versions & levels (Linux, freebsd, macOS, windows, home edition, professional, etc)

When looking for help it’s best to give as much data as possible to enable folk to try & diagnose the issue.

Otherwise it’s like calling kwikfit about a cruse control issue on a blue car.

Has it ever worked
Is this the first time you’ve tried
Is it a new usb
What file system is on the usb
Does it already have data on it
What troubleshooting steps have you taken…

[xeny]

OK, on 10 Pro, a right click gives the option "Turn BitLocker On". That encrypts the drive and isn't there on 10 Home.

[xeny]

My sympathies. They're essentially the same plumbing but I find the Windows 11 UI more annoying.

My 11 Pro machine has the same "Turn Bitlocker on" entry on the context menu, and you've handily confirmed (or have you said somewhere?) that you're using 11 Home.

[snuffy]

Having just Googled how you do this, and finding loads of articles, it's interesting to note that most of them fail to mention that Bitlocker encryption (but not de-encryption) is not available in Windows Home. Or, if it does, it's a footnote, which looks like it was added after the main article was written and the author has been contracted by someone to tell them of such.

So, to be fair to Mr A Expert, most things you will have read online don't bother to mention it's Pro version only.

[eeLee]

Home editions do have something for the system drive: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/device...

What are you trying to encrypt on the USB drive?

Option 1, if you're fairly computer-literate is Veracrypt.
Option 2 would be using 7Zip to encrypt (password protect with AES-256 encryption)
Option 3 would be to password-protect Office files, if you have a modern version of Office (note there are password recovery tools that claim they can "unlock" the files...)

These are forms of symmetric encryption where the same key is used to encypt and decrypt the contents. That key is important and should be long, fairly random and have complexity (Ab3ç) to make guessing it harder.

[mmm-five]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Prison pocket?

[cobra kid]

mmm-five said:

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Prison pocket?

And don't take it to PC World to repair.

[mmm-five]

cobra kid said:

And don't take it to PC World to repair.

Although asking them to try to retrieve data from 'there' would be fun!