Password protecting a Flash Drive?

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When I plug in my FlashDrive it opens up a Disk Image, I was wondering if it is at all possible to set up that Disk Image as a Password Protected disk image?
So when I insert the Flash Drive it will prompt me for a password and then open. I am starting up a small company and I would to keep all my confidential files on a Password Protected Flash Drive.
I know how to set up a password protected disk image using disk utility. But Disk Utility wont let me put a password on the disk image that automatically opens when inserting the flash drive, I have tried reformatting the flash drive, etc. but can't seem to get it to work.
The closest I've gotten is putting a .dmg file on the flash drive and then after opening the drive, open the .dmg file. Which would then prompt me for a password and open a new disk image. but I would like it a little less troublesome.
Please some one tell me if this is possible or not and How to do this?? Thanks
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there are no built in tools to do that. the best you can do using built in tools is to make an encrypted disk image and put that on your flash drive. but you say you don't want that. the only other option would be a 3rd party full disk encryption tool like TrueCrypt or PGP. I'm not familiar with either so you'll have to investigate that yourself.

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Password Protected External hard drive

I have a password protected external hard drive that I want to format so I can give it to a friend. When you format the drive does the password protection also get erased? Is there anything essential that I need to know before doing this? Thanks for your help!

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
If it's a WD MyBook, I'm not sure. I formatted and partitioned a MyBook for a friend, but was never able to get rid of the password protection so we just left it. It may be possible to do it, but I don't know how. Definitely check it out, and if the password is still required, be sure to pass it on to your friend.
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I'm trying to find an external drive for the MacPro that will allow me to password protect the external drive in case it is taken. Any suggestions on a very reliable on that is 2TB or a third party software that is compatable with the need I describe?

I'm trying to find an external drive for the MacPro that will allow me to password protect the external drive in case it is taken. Any suggestions on a very reliable one that is 2TB or a third party software that is compatable with the need I describe?

How much of a hurry are you in, and are you considering upgrading to Lion?
File Vault on Snow Leopard only encrypts home folders you select, and doesn't work well with Time Machine.
But Lion will have "full disk encryption" of local or external disks. See File Vault 2 here: http://www.apple.com/macosx/whats-new/features.html

I exported my passwords to a flash drive, and have a new computer. How do I get those passwords moved to the NEW machine?

I exported my passwords to a flash drive, and have a new computer. How do I get those passwords moved to the NEW machine?

Firefox doesn't have an "export" feature built into it for password data.
Exactly what did you do to "export" your passwords?
Did you use this extension?
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/password-exporter/
If so, see the screenshots on that page to see the Import function.
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https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles

Simplest way to password protect an external drive??

I want to clone my Macbook onto an external drive - I don't want to have to turn on filevault - never used it - i would ideally like to password protect the "Macintosh HD" icon on the external drive.... is there a really simple way to do this?

Well, whenever I want to password protect anything, I just encrypt it using disk utility.
After opening Disk Utility, go to File, New, Blank Disk Image. Then you select how much space you'd like to take up with the encrypted folder (you have to preset the size of the folder anticipating further change). The folder can be made on your main HD or Flash drive or external HD. It offer 256bit encryption but the folder can still be deleted by anyone with access to it even without the password.

How do I encrypt/password protect an external drive?

Hey, I have over 80 gigs of music saved on an external hard drive I use with my MBP. I take this disk to different studios, etc and want to make sure that I am the only one who can access the external drive when it is plugged into a computer. Is there a way to encrypt/passwork protect an entire external drive? I looked into the disk image thing, but as far as I can tell there are space limitations with this (or am I wrong)?
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If you want to password protect a folder ...
Launch /Applications/Applescript/Script Editor
Paste this in:
on opening folder This_Folder
repeat
tell application "Finder"
set dialogresult to display dialog "Restricted Folder. Please enter the password to access folder:" buttons {"Ok", "Close"} default button 1 default answer "" with hidden answer
copy the result as list to {PWText, button_choice}
set button_choice to the button returned of dialogresult
if button_choice is equal to "Ok" then
set PWText to the text returned of dialogresult
if not PWText = "your password" then
display dialog "Access Denied" buttons {"Ok"} default button 1
else
display dialog "Access Granted" buttons {"Ok"} default button 1
exit repeat
end if
else if button_choice is equal to "Close" then
tell application "Finder"
close folder This_Folder
exit repeat
end tell
end if
end tell
end repeat
end opening folder
Click 'Compile' then 'Save As'
(Where it says "*your password*" insert the one you want)
Then CTRL-click on a folder / (Enable Folder Actions if not on) / Configure Folder Actions / Activate and select your script.

Checking I still have a password protected external hard drive

I recently got a new mac (went from a 2009 Lion imac to a 2012 Mavericks imac) and i used time machine to do i (time machine is also encrypted/passworded) All is well.
I use an external 2TB hard drive to store data on and i had set this drive up on the 2009 imac formatted with a password which is saved on my keychain.
When i upgraded everything transfered ok but the time machine drive asked for password, i entered it and again no issues. The 2TB drive however (i turn it off when not in use) didnt ask for a password at all, it works fine but it no longer requires a password?
The other issue i had recently was the fact that randomly when turning the drive on it DID as for the password, which when i entered it... it was wrong? even though it is entered correctly 100%. I then turned the drive off and on again and boom it works, without asking for a password.
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i formatted the hard drive and did it in disk utility, which means a full day or so of formatting and rebacking up, not really viable.

Password protecting an external drive

apologies if this has already been asked and answered:
I back up my Macbook onto an external La Cie hard drive; my macbook is protected by account and login passwords - how can I password protect the identical data on my backup drive?

Use the Disk Utility application in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder to create an encrypted disk image on that drive, and then move your data on the external drive to it followed by throwing the unencrypted data away and choosing Secure Empty Trash from the Finder menu. If you don't uncheck the box to add the image's password to the keychain and the keychain password is the same as your login password, which is the default setting, the image will be unlocked to your account when you login, but will remain encrypted to other accounts, including root.
(20535)

How do I "un-write protect" USB flash drives?

I recently purchased a new computer that has Windows 8. One of my many flash/thumb drives is now suddenly marked "write-protected" when I did nothing to make it so. I found a solution listed for Windows 7. I applied it to my
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I ran in to the same problem but none of the instructions here helped. doing some more searching i found a different article that supplied the answer for my issue. wanted to share in case other were still having issues.
If the problem is persistent with the drive and you still can't copy files to it or format it after:-
1- You tried removing read-only permission from the drive properties
2- You tried formatting from Windows
3- You tried formatting from CMD using DISKPART
4- You tried editing the Registry solution (for WriteProtect word)
5- You tried the different free online tools like
HDD LL Format tool and HP Format Tool
Then your drive is corrupt and needs the internal chipset S/W to be flashed, i.e. repairing the USB software The
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do it yourself as follows (which I source from here):-
1- Get Chip
Genius portable application from here which
you will use to find the VID and PID of the USB stick chip.
2- Search for the tool to repair your USB stick S/W from FlashBoot
website . Search using your VID and PID from the previous step.
3- Search on Google for the name of the application you find in the "UTILS" column in the page from step 2 and the first link on Google Results
(usually) will take you back to the FlashBoot website to download the utility to get your USB drive repaired.
It worked for me for my Kingston Data Traveler flash drive. It didn't work with all the common options for fixing the USB drive having "write protected",
but the above solution I found after hours and hours of searching online and asking my computer-geeks colleagues.
Hope this helps!

How Do I Erase a Password Protected USB Thumb Drive

I have a SanDisk Cruzer 16GB Thumb Drive that I Password Protected.
I have forgotten the PASSWORD and I made the hint to hard also. How do I just erase the Whole Thumb Drive and start over?
I have tried using Disk Utility but the Thumb Drive is all "greyed out"
Thanks for any help.

If you can connect the drive to a computer running Windows or a version of OS X older than 10.7, erase the drive that way. Otherwise see the link below.
Hard disk bricked after using file vault with time machine

Password Protect external hard drive, it hasn't worked, why?

Hi, I've surfed around and read how to password protect an external hard drive and I encrypted it, etc as told.
However, and this will likely show my ignorance but isn't that the point of asking a question...
The thing is, it's made the disk image that requires a password, but the hard drive can be ejected and put in and accessed without a password. The disk image is protected, permanently there (so maybe now it's taking up space on my hard drive, and the actual external hard drive is the same as it ever was and can be accessed without any password.
Is there something I've done wrong, or something I'm not understanding about the concept?
Thanks in advance.
Message was edited by: NeanderCuz

Hi-
Welcome to Discussions!
Double clicking the disk image should respond with a password request.
Does yours work that way?
If so, you didn't do anything wrong, as far as the encrypted disk image goes.
That's about all that you can do.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1578
To encrypt the entire drive and make it inaccessible without password, this might be what you want:
http://www.truecrypt.org/

Is there any way to password protect a hard drive?

What I would like is that if you connect a hard drive, it cannot be opened or accessed or have the content visible without putting in a password. Is this possible?
Thanks very much.

Thanks. I'm leery of encrypting video files, especially segmented ones. Perhaps I shouldn't be.
Does the drive have to re-encrypt each time it's closed?
Thanks again.

Password protecting external hard drive

Hi all,
I have a western digital 500gb usb 2.0, and was wondering if there is a way that you can make it require a password for opening. I do not want to make alias' and ghost files etc. just want to know if there is a way of making it simply, password or no access.
Cheers!

Use Disk Utility to create a secure disk image on the external drive, and store your data in that. The drive will mount, but to get to the data in the encrypted disk image file on the drive you would need the password. (Note that if you lose the password, the data are gone forever!)
To learn how to create a secure disk image, open Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility, click on Help menu > DU Help, and search for "secure disk image".
Hope this helps...

Can OSX secure a 'Flash Drive'

I read in Wikipedeia that starting with Panther, apple software makes it possible to
secure the data on a usb flash drive. Allegedly in Disk Utility. But have not found it.
I assume it to mean password protect the flash drive.
Any help?

AMBER93 wrote:
ON THE SECURE disc image on the flash drive. It worked the first time; but on three subsequent times the flash drive has been plugged in it fails to ask for the password for the disc image file and opens the financial file directly.
Why????
When you created the image and entered a password, you probably had "Remember Password (add to Keychain)" checked. That means on your own computer, you do not have to ask for the password, as it is saved in the keychain. On any other machine, you would probably be asked for the password.
I believe you can remove that password from your keychain using Keychain Access.app in your utilities folder. Ahh, yes you can. Just find the name of the image in the list in Keychain Access and select delete from the edit menu.

Password protect a USB printer?

I'm trying to figure out how to password protect a USB laser printer that is shared between two 10.4.x G5s. I don't mind altering the cupsd.conf file, I just need some clear directions. I looked at the CUPS documentation online, but found it a little less "user-friendly" than I'd like.
What I want to accomplish is that a password is required to print from either Mac, and, if possible, that the password is different than the user's login. I'd also welcome the recommendation of any third-party software that can do this.
Thanks.
G5 1.8 DP / 1gb RAM Mac OS X (10.4.3)

The first flash drive I ever bought was a Lexar 128mb and there was software that came installed on it to allow for password locking of the drive.
They don't have it for download anymore, and it didn't work for anything but a Lexar drive anyway.
There are several companies that make "universal" security programs for flash drives both Win and Mac.
Google "Password Protection for flash drives" and you'll be treated to a host of results. Your best bet may be here: http://www.rohos.com/free-encryption/
Message was edited by: MaclessInAZ

Password protecting a Flash Drive?

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