【PUT USB PenDrive Password】▷ Step by Step Guide ▷ 2022

If you are one of those who has to hide your flash drive or fight so that they don’t touch it because you have extremely important information or very personal files, you are in the right place. For this, technology has created some time ago methods to prevent unauthorized people from seeing your information.

With the help of these methods and tools, you will not only be able to lock some files on a USB flash drive, but also you can create several partitions on your disk and only lock one of them, in this way you can be sure that the information that you do not want them to see will be very safe, and you will lend the flash drive with confidence. These methods are very simple, to achieve this you just have to know what information you want to protect.

You are in the perfect place to learn everything you need to know about encrypting an external drive since we will teach you this and also how to decrypt those disks that for some reason you need to remove their lock. Simply use the tools that we will teach you so that blocking or unlocking a USB is child’s play.

What are the advantages of encrypting a pen drive or external drive?

When you do disk encryption this includes various techniques and tools, which allow you to protect all information stored on hard drives from third partiesUSB sticks and even individual files.

With a password or a complex key you can encrypt the information, mostly with complex algorithms, preventing them from accessing it without any type of authorization.

Logically, the password you establish should only be known by you. In addition to this, you will have other advantages such as:

• Being able to keep private information without fear of it being seen by others.
• Keep information protected from malware and other viruses.

Something that is essential to be able to do encryption is that they have to be totally transparent to you (user) and the applicationsin other words, that you can write to all encrypted disks (also folders), in the same way that you can write to unencrypted ones.

Advantages of full disk (USB) encryption

This is one of the best ways to ensure that no one sees what you are saving to the removable drive. The advantages are obvious.

• The operating system will work the same on files and folders. as usual person You will not observe any change in your daily operation.
• Do not worry about the encryption of specific files, the entire disk will be fully encrypted.
• You can encrypt at boot. nobody will be able to access the content stored on the disk without the encryption key (if you talk about internal disk).

Disadvantages of disk encryption

Not everything is profit by applying this type of protection, and although it is often worth it to keep your information secure, It is important that you know that:

• There is a small performance loss on the computer. By encrypting the entire drive, including swap files, the operating system loses some optimizations and this makes it slower to function. (if you talk about internal disk).
• It depends how you encrypt the disk, you can submit to risks that can intercept your keys.
• If you lose or forget your encryption key, you lose absolutely everything.

Steps to protect an external USB memory with a password

Now that you know in advance the advantages and disadvantages of encrypt a disk or removable memoryIt is time for you to learn how to do it without making mistakes. You will notice that it is an extremely easy process in the main operating systems.

on Windows

When we talk about Windows, it has a security feature, developed by Microsoft, called BitLocker. This is installed by default in all versions of Windows.

• To get started, insert your removable drive and go to windows startup, in the search field write control panel and open it. When you open it you will find different options to adjust the configuration of your equipment. You will only select where it says “System Y security”.

• Then you will open the window, and of all the options that it presents you, look for the option that says “BitLocker Drive Encryption”.

• Later you will choose the drive you want to encrypt (in the sample image the drive is named Kingston8GB).

• Once located, click “Enable BitLocker” and you will be able to encrypt by means of two systems: one with a password, and another by means of a smart card.

• Once the process is finished, you will be given the choice of where you want to save the backup copy of the key: , in a file or if you want to print it.
• Then you will choose how much of the drive you want to encrypt, in case you don’t want to fully encrypt the USB. If this is the case, the process will be done much faster.

• You will see a new window, where you will have to decide encryption mode: the first one is more indicated for internal disks. For external drives choose the second method, the most compatible mode.
• It will open one more window which will show you alls the options chosen before having to confirm for the last timewhich will start the encryption that, depending on the size of the USB drive, will last less or longer.

When you insert this unit into another computer, you will notice that a reading error appears, but then it will show you a notification warning you that the drive is protected with BitLocker. If you click on this last entry, a box will appear where you can write the password so that you can access normally.

on macOS

In the case that you have a MacOS computer, the procedure is easier. Simply insert the USB that previously has to be formatted. When the device icon appears on the desktop, right click on it and when it opens the drop down menu you just have to click on the option that says “Encrypt”, and enter the password with which you want to block it.

on linux

In GNU/Linux the procedure is as easy as the previous one:

• Enter the external drive. When the icon appears on the desktop, just right-click on it and choose the option that says format volume.
• Before formatting the drive, encrypt it with a strictly personal password and finish the process.

What if I want to unlock and remove the password from an encrypted or encrypted flash drive?

The process for unlock encrypted usb it is basically the same as to encrypt it, having to apply the processes in reverse. Here we show you how to do it in the main operating systems out there.

on Windows

As we mentioned before, the Microsoft platform has a tool to encrypt removable disks. if you want now disable bitlocker for some reason, you have to follow these steps.

• First you insert your flash drive (USB), enter your password and then right click on the drive already protected in the file explorer, when you are there you select the option manage BitLocker.

• Some options will be displayed, as you can see in the image and click on “Disable BitLocker.”
• When doing so, a message will appear to confirm that you want “Disable BitLocker”, click there, so you can continue.

• Once the operation is processed, you will notice that sends you a notice that the disk has been decrypted.
• ready you already achieved disable external drive encryption (USB). In this simple way you can lock or unlock this unit whenever you want.

on macOS

If setting the password seemed like an extremely easy thing to do, removing the encryption will be much easier. Apply these steps and remove the protection that you considered necessary at the time.

• Connect the external disk (USB) that you want to remove the encryption. Select the external drive icon and right click then “Decipher”.

• Enter the password you used to encrypt the drive, in order to start the decryption process. This can take a while, it all depends on the size of the drive.

on linux

If you need to unlock your external drive (USB) with Linux, you just need to have the Hdparm application installed, which is a low-level tool that acts as an interface between various Linux kernel drivers and also the storage media. SATA/FEET/SASvia the library as the IDE media.

Sounds complicated? Then we translate all this into Spanish with the following steps.

• Once the tool is downloaded, you can use the –r option with which you can query the status of the bit with a simple command. To do this, you must know the physical name of your storage device that you want to unlock. Example: if it is called /dev/sdd, you can use: sudo hdparm -r /dev/sdd.
• The value of the device will be shown on the screen. If its value is 1, it means that the “readonly” or read-only mode is active, in other words it is write-protected, and therefore you will not be able to write anything in memory.
• To turn it off or modify the bit, just type the following: 1 sudo hdparm -r0 /dev/sdd.

And now when you execute the first command and check the status you will see that it has returned to 0, therefore the readonly mode is off or deactivated.

Methods to protect files on a USB flash drive using a secure password

There are many methods to protect your information, here we will show you. Applying each of them is child’s play if you learn how they work.

Encrypt Files

It is the option to encrypt the files in a faster way. The problem with this is that you can only encrypt some files. You can encrypt Microsoft Word files, as well as any of the office suite programs with a password.

an encrypted partition

It is an option to encrypt only some of the files contained in the removable memory. In other words you have the advantage of the previous option, since you encrypt what you want, but you can also do it with each and every one of the files you want.

What you do specifically is divide the memory of your flash drive as if there were two, in this way you can encrypt one partition and not another. Everything you save from the encrypted partition will be protected. for this is widely used a tool called Rohos Mini Drive.

The generated partition, it has to be a maximum of 8 GB, as this is the limitation offered by the program. The good part is that you will not need any program to decrypt the flash drive, since it will go with you wherever you go. The encryption key is in the format 256-bit AES.

To be able to encrypt it you will have to use the option “Encrypt USB Drive” either “Configure the USB key”; choose a key for encryption and click on “Create disk”. To finish, you choose the size and type of the file system and finish with the process.

Fully encrypt the flash drive

It is an option that will make it impossible for others to access anything on the flash drive without the password. You will be able to do it in Windows by default, so you will not need any program. Of course you will have to be a Windows user on a mandatory basis. The tool to do this is called BitLocker..

What are the best programs and tools to put a password on a flash drive?

Many are the most used tools to be able to encrypt and block a device…