Clicking the indicator displays a message that Adobe Flash Player is out of date: To continue viewing Flash content, update to a later version of Adobe Flash Player: Click the Download Flash button. Safari opens the Adobe Flash Player page on the Adobe website. USB flash drives are unquestionably one of the most convenient portable storage devices for transporting business files between unconnected computers.
Article Summary In this article, we have prepared the step by step guide, which will help you to encrypt your USB Flash Drive or folders whether it’s on Mac, Windows, Ubuntu & Linux. All of these methods easy to use and free! Table of content:. Almost every computer user today has at least one USB flash drive. These handy storage devices are often found in pockets or used as keychains. Unfortunately, their small size makes them easy to misplace or lose. When you lose your USB drive, there’s always a risk of someone finding it and going through your personal files.
So, to truly protect your data, make sure your USB flash drive is secure. You can easily do this with your Mac computer, which allows you to put a protective password on your data. To do so, you can use your Mac to create an encrypted disk image of your USB drive; the disk image becomes a container for your data and only authorized users who know the password can open it. Tutorial: How To Encrypt A Flash Drive In Mac: There are many ways to encrypt USB Flash Drive in Mac, also you can use many tools to encrypt your files or full disk, but in this tutorial, we are going to use Mac Internal Encryption program which is highly recommended. Another method: We are creating another folder inside your USB drive which is encrypted and contain your sensitive data in it. This is the best way because you don’t need to enter the passcode each time when you are accessing the files other than the Encrypted Folder.
Insert your flash drive into a USB port on your Mac. Copy all files on the drive and paste them into your Desktop. The USB drive has to be empty during the encryption process. All files can simply be copied back onto it after the completion of the encryption process. Once the flash drive is empty, open Disk Utility, which is found under Applications in your Finder menu. You will see a window with a list of devices towards the left portion of it. Choose your flash drive from the list.
Go to the Erase tab and click on Format to open the corresponding menu. From the choices, choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled). You will be asked for a name, which you can freely choose. Next:. Click on the Erase button at the bottom of the window to delete all data on the drive.
Wait for the process to be completed. After the process, open the File menu and click on New, then tap on Blank Disk Image. Save Location should be your USB Drive Name.
Choose the size closest to the full capacity of your USB drive; make sure the size is smaller. As for the Encryption menu, choose either 128-bit or 256-bit AES encryption. As for the Partitions, choose Single Partition. Go to Image Format and click on Read/write disk image. Finally, click Create.
A small window will appear where you will be asked to provide a password. Don’t lose your password as you will not be able to access your data without password. Paste all your old files onto the drive; place them on the DMG disk image file.
If you don’t save them in that file, they will not be password protected. Tutorial: How To Encrypt A Flash Drive In Windows: Windows 7 and above versions have an internal feature called BitLocker, which is used to encrypt internal and external drives. Unfortunately, Password protection is not available as a built-in feature in Windows XP, 7, 8 or even in 10.
But there are few third-party tools available for password protection. There is another tool called “TrueCrypt” which is now moved to BitLocker, was previously used for the same purposes. In this section we’ll show you:.
How to Encrypt Folders & Texts Files in Windows. How to encrypt Full USB Drive in Windows by using BitLocker. Method to encrypt particular folder inside your USB How to Encrypt Full USB Encryption With BitLocker: STEP #1: Plug the USB drive and move your data from it. Once it’s done!
Format the USB by NTFS Format. STEP #2: Right Click on your Flash Drive and Click on ” Turn On BitLocker”. STEP #3: Check mark the first option, that enables the password Fields, Enter your desire password and hit next.
STEP #4: In this step you need to save your “private key” in somewhere safe location. Just in case you forgot your password, it is recommended to save your password to your cloud or online drive. After that, Click on Next. It will take a little time to process, depending on your Flash Drive Storage as well as your PC Performance.
Usually It takes about 1 minute per 1 GB. STEP #5: Once it’s done! Unplugged the Flash Drive and Plug it again, when you reconnect your USB Flash Drive it will ask you for the password to get in there.
Note: In this method, you will only encrypt full USB flash drive. How To Encrypt A Folder In Flash Drive: In this tutorial, you will see how you can encrypt particular folder inside your Flash drive. This is the best way to encrypt and protect your Folder data, it’s also best because; you don’t need to insert the password each time you want to access other files on your USB. Unfortunately, there is no built-in feature available for Windows users for that specific task. But you can use third party tools like Lacie Free Encrypted Tool to Encrypt your Folder. Here Are The Simple Steps to Encrypt Folder In Flash Drive: STEP #1: You need to website.
Download and extract the files. STEP #2: Copy All Extracted Folders and paste into your USB Flash Drive. Remember“this folder should be copied and pasted into root, it shouldn’t be inside any subfolder, otherwise it won’t work” STEP #3: Paste all the Extracted Folder inside your USB Flash Drive.
STEP #4: Go to the extracted Folder and find the private-public.exe file and run it. STEP #5: This is where you can give a size to your folder, in my case i’m just using 500mb for demonstration. After giving the size of your folder simply click on “Next” STEP #6: Now Create a password for that folder: choose the password and click next. STEP #7: Hit Next and process will start in few seconds, it also depends on your data and PC performance, usually it takes 1 minute per 1 GB transfer. STEP #8: When it’s done, it will take you to disk mounting process. Here, you just need to put your created password in the fields. STEP #9: It’s almost completed, if you go to “my computer” you can see there are some other drive pop-ups!
Which you have created. Put all the sensitive data in it and it will automatically save into encrypted folder inside Flash Drive. Now all of your data in that encrypted drive is protected through encryption and once you disconnect the USB Flash drive, the encrypted drive will go away from sidebar or in “My Computer”. When you reconnect your Flash Drive, it will not going show you the encrypted folder which you have created, because it’s hidden. In order to retrieve that you need to go to your USB storage and again run the private-public.exe, and this time it will just ask for a password.
Once you provide the password, that will drive show again and you can check your data inside. Tutorial: How To Encrypt A Flash Drive In Ubuntu Or Linux Operating System: As like other operating systems, there are encrypted tools available, which is called third party tools which are perfectly compatible with both Linux & Ubuntu. In this Tutorial we will see how you can encrypt Flash Drive by using Disk Utility. STEP #1 The first step is to plug in your USB Flash Drive and Copy All the data Somewhere else. STEP #2 Go to the dashboard Home and type Disk Utility STEP #3 Find your Flash drive and click on it STEP #4 Click on unmount the Volume so you can format the disk before encryption STEP #5 Now Hit Format Drive and be patient STEP #6 Now here you can encrypt full disk or create a partition of encrypted storage. STEP #7 Check the “Encrypt underlying device” and create the drive STEP #8 Now Create New password for your encrypted folder and hit “Create” STEP #9 Now when you disconnect your USB and Reconnect Your USB you will see the dialog box asking for the password. Finally, the encryption of your folder or drive is complete.
Here is the if you want. Are There Any Risks Of Encrypting Flash Drive? When we think about encryption, it always seems beneficial which is mostly true.
However, in encrypting a flash drive, there are some issues to which a user is still prone. The password could be the greatest issue as the whole encryption process depends on keeping a strong password. If your password is easy to guess or doesn’t contain strong characters then there are chances that it could be revealed. Most people write down the password to remember it which produces the chances of losing it.
Also, if the encrypted flash drive is entered into a compromised device with key logging software then you may lose the password while entering it. However, the most probable risk is the loss of the password if you forget it and there is no chance to decrypt USB data without password. But, there are the ways to recover password such as BitLocker’s recovery key or a clue or to store it securely. Categories Post navigation.
If you have an external hard drive or USB flash drive that you’d like to use on both Macs and Windows PCs, choosing the right file system to format the drive can be confusing. Learn a few ways to make your drive Mac and PC friendly. Need to access or transfer files between Mac and PC? As simple as this task sounds, it’s not very straightforward for inexperienced users.
Since Mac OS X and Windows use totally different file systems, the way a drive is formatted can determine what type of computer it will work with. In fact, there are four ways you can format an external or USB flash drive to achieve varying degrees of compatibility between Macs and PCs. Let’s take a look at them: HFS+ Mac OS X’s native file system is HFS+ (also known as Mac OS Extended), and it’s the only one that works with Time Machine. But while HFS+ is the best way to format drives for use on Macs, Windows does not support it.
If you’re only going to be using your external or USB flash drive with certain PCs – such as at home or the office – you might be interested in a program called. When you install MacDrive on a Windows PC, it will be able to seamlessly read & write to HFS+ drives. This isn’t a good solution if you need your drive to work on any PC without installing software, though. NTFS The native Windows file system is NTFS, which is only partially compatible with Mac OS X. Macs can read files on NTFS drives, but it cannot write to them. So if you need to get files from a PC to your Mac, NTFS is a decent option.
However, you won’t be able to move files in the other direction, from Mac to PC. FAT32 The most universally supported way to format your drive is with the FAT32 file system. It works with all versions of Mac OS X and Windows. Case closed, right? Well, not so fast. Unfortunately, FAT32 is a very old file system and has some technical limitations. For example, you cannot save files that are larger than 4GB on a FAT32-formatted drive.
This is a deal-breaker if you work with huge files. The other limitation is the total size of the partition. If you format your FAT32 drive in Windows, the drive partition cannot be larger than 32GB.
If you format it from a Mac running 10.7 Lion, the drive partition can be up to 2TB. Much better, except for that pesky 4GB limit. ExFAT The exFAT file system eliminates the two major deficiencies of FAT32: the largest partition and file sizes it supports are virtually unlimited by today’s standards. Awesome, it’s perfect! Almost since exFAT is fairly new, it isn’t compatible with older Macs and PCs. Any Mac running 10.6.5 (Snow Leopard) or 10.7 (Lion) supports exFAT, while PCs running Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista SP1, and Windows 7 are compatible.
If you know you’ll be using computers running updated versions of these operating systems, exFAT is the clear best choice. Format a drive using Disk Utility on a Mac. Launch Disk Utility (Applications Utilities). Select your external hard drive or USB flash drive from the list on the left. Click on the Erase tab. Select the format – Mac OS Extended (HFS+), MS-DOS (FAT32), or exFAT – then name the drive.
Click the Erase button and the drive will start formatting. Be aware that formatting a drive deletes all of the files on it, so back up anything important before completing this step. Format a drive using Windows. Go to Computer (or My Computer in Windows XP). Select your drive from the list and right-click on it. Choose Format from the contextual menu. A window will pop up where you can choose the format – NTFS, FAT32, or exFAT.
Make sure the allocation unit size is set to default and type in a volume label. Click Start to format the drive. I did exactly what you said to do in order to format a LaCie 160gb external hard drive to exFat for use on a Mac (OSX 10.7 Lion) and a PC (Windows 7). Unfortunately, now my Mac doesn’t “see” the hard drive anymore and my PC tells me the device is not working properly (error Code 43 in Device Manager). Before reformatting from a NTFS, the LaCie worked fine on my Mac and my PC “saw” it but I couldn’t access it. It is connected via USB 2.0 and AC/DC power. Where could I go or what resource(s) is/are available for me to solve this problem?
I heard using a firewire might help. I just got a Seagate GoFlex Desk External Drive, and after reading your article, I tried to format it for ExFat but got an error: Invalid Option. Seagate tells me that they do not support ExFat.
They say “Reformatting a drive in ExFAT is something that we don’t support. It can be an unstable format that can cause data corruption without warning.” Have you found that other hard drive manufactures say they don’t support this format for the same reason? Should I turn the hard drive back in, and get a different one, where the manufacturer supports this format. Is what Seagate says true? I just got two Western Digital 3TB external hard-drives. I want to be able to use them on both Mac & PC. When i go to format it on my Mac, FAT32 is not an option, and every time i try exFAT i also get an “error: Invalid Option”.
I then tried to do this on two other Macs & it still wouldn’t work, but then I tried it on a work-mate’s Mac today & it formatted in exFAT fine How unstable is exFAT? I don’t want to lose the media i store on this drive. I don’t mind formatting it in FAT32, but it’s not an option when trying to format this hard-drive. Any suggestions? Is there a free formatting application that is good to use instead of using the “Disk Utility” on Mac.? I have an IMAC running OSX 10.7.5 I recently bought a Trekstor DataStation pocket light 500 GB external portable hard drive 2.5″ I need it to transfer 190 GB of video and audio files to give to an editor.
I received it and a small paper inside said it’s not compatible with my IMAC. Only to READ files. I’m not sure what system the editor will use and after reading all the comments above, I’m really hesitant to re-format the disc before moving the files onto.
Now the files are on another TrekStor external drive that the camera guy lent me. I am not very technical and don’t want to screw anything up. Can anyone help? I do hope you can help me with this I was using my sisters Mac temporarily and before giving it back to her I copied all my files onto a thumb drive. Tonight I copied those files to the hard drive of my PC laptop and removed them from the thumb drive. For whatever reason I am trying to open a few of the files in a certain program, but it keeps telling me that the file I am trying to access is not supported.
Someone mentioned that maybe it has something to do with the thumb drive. I have no idea what to do and I am praying that I didn’t lose any of my files.
Thanks so much!! I’ve read too many posts from people having all sorts of problems using exFAT to consider using it. Maybe one day, but for now, “not ready for prime time!”. The best solution I found was: 1. Format your hard drive, or every partition on it, using NTSF. You’ll end up with a drive that is: – Stable, so your data is relatively safe (priority #1) – Capable of handling large files – Readable/writable in Win 7+ – But only readable in Mac OS X 2. Make the NTSF drive both readable and writable in Mac OS X.
There are different ways to do that. Method 1: Mac OS X is actually capable of writing to a NTSF drive, just not by default (don’t ask!). So you need to activate it: 1.
Go to “utilities” and start the “terminal” app. (enter your password if prompted) 2. Type (copy/paste): sudo nano /etc/fstab Press “return” Type: LABEL=TEST none ntfs rw,auto,nobrowse Press “return”, CTRL+O to save, CTRL+X to exit the terminal.
Unmount your drive, then plug it back in. It won’t show up anymore. Back in the terminal, type: open /Volumes press “return” There’s your NTSF drive!
Now you can do whatever you want with it in Mac OS X. (tip: create an alias of the volumes so you don’t have to go back to the terminal every time) Another free method: “EaseUS ALL-IN-ONE Partition Manager” software I’ve not tried it myself, but I’ve only heard good things about it.
You can download it here:. Make sure to download the “free for home user” version. The other methods involve using 3rd party drivers such as: Paragon NTFS or Tuxera NTFS. They’re not free, but they won’t break the bank. I hope this helps.
Thank you so much for this easy to follow and understand explanation. I have OS X 10.7.5 running Lion. Bought the new Passport 1T today and even though the package says it can run on MAC OS X, when I tried to format with the company instructions it wouldn’t let me and stated “It will only run on 10.8 or above”. I looked at my old passport in Utilities and it was formatted as NTFS (Mac OS Extended) and wanted to follow the exact same since my old Passport has been excellent for my needs. I formatted the new Passport with NTFS and it works like a charm. Really appreciate how you explained everything in simple terms, so not only was I able to do the formatting, I also understand what I am doing and why. I can now drag and drop files on to the new passport and they copy fast.
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