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Tweedlewise

Member

Registered: 2025-01-19

Posts: 16  

Encrypt USB?

Good day!
I have saved ~93 Gb off of my brother's old PC (Win10?) onto a USB SSD.
As he lives in another state, I would like to encrypt the drive before mailing it.
I'm not sure how to do that.  He will need to be able to decrypt it on a Win11 machine.
Is this possible?
I'm thinking of using a password that is familiar to him.

Regards,
Tweedlewise

rolfie

Member

Registered: 2017-11-25

Posts: 1,311  

Re: Encrypt USB?

Veracrypt

Tweedlewise

Member

Registered: 2025-01-19

Posts: 16  

Re: Encrypt USB?

Thank you Rolfie!

Tweedlewise

Member

Registered: 2025-01-19

Posts: 16  

Re: Encrypt USB?

I have downloaded and opened veracrypt.
But as I understand,, I cannot encrypt the contents existing USB drive?
Veracrypt claims it will format the drive, meaning that I will lose all the data on it.

I suppose I could move the data to a hard drive, encrypt the USB, then move the data back?

PedroReina

Member

From: Madrid, Spain

Registered: 2019-01-13

Posts: 291  

Website

Re: Encrypt USB?

Another possibility: compress all the content in a zip file protected with password and copy that file to the USB. I did not test it myself.

stargate-sg1-cheyenne-mtn

Member

Registered: 2023-11-27

Posts: 380  

Re: Encrypt USB?

adding a link mostly for future thread visitors:

https://www.howtogeek.com/6169/use-truecrypt-to-secure-your-data/

yes the link says "truecrypt" but the how-to says "veracrypt" ... who knows why? ymmv.

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rolfie

Member

Registered: 2017-11-25

Posts: 1,311  

Re: Encrypt USB?

Another possibility: compress all the content in a zip file protected with password and copy that file to the USB. I did not test it myself.

To my experience, this only works between Linux and Linux, not from Linux to Windows. There is some incompatibility.

rolfie

Member

Registered: 2017-11-25

Posts: 1,311  

Re: Encrypt USB?

I suppose I could move the data to a hard drive, encrypt the USB, then move the data back?

Thats the way to go.

Tweedlewise

Member

Registered: 2025-01-19

Posts: 16  

Re: Encrypt USB?

Oh great, I tried to submit a post, but the website logged me out while I was typing it, and now it is gone.,,

Any way, I moved the data off the USB into a folder I made on /home of my PC.

I then ran Veracrypt,  it created a Volume on the USB drive /dev/sde1 (128 GB)
With formatting it took over an hour.
Now I'm having difficulty moving the sub-directory from /home (86.4 Gb) into the volume I created.

While click on "Select File" I then choose the sub-directory  from /home
When I click on "Open File"  it then opens the sub-directory and lists its contents,
Butt All Files doesn't select all (as far as I can tell the button doesn't even work..)
It just wants me to open a file in THAT sub-directory

I don't understand how to make the /home sub-directory a .hc as the Beginner's Guide seems to suggest.