Crypting a full Windows computer with TrueCrypt

Time and time again we hear stories of laptops with sensitive data being stolen or people going to other people's computers without permission. Fortunately there is a simpel solution to prevent data from leaking out like this. TrueCrypt, an open source package, offers the option of encrypting an entire Windows-computer. It does take sometime to set it up, but it isn't all that hard. In this episode I show you how to do this with just a few clicks of the mouse and a couple of reboots. It's so simpel that you should ask yourself, why you haven't done this yet. Well: Go for it!

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• TrueCrypt
• Security
• Encryption
• Harddisk
• Privacy
• SmallSister

[firemetal2007]

2 questions: First of all, will this work if my drive is part of a RAID array, and second, what if you receive viruses on your system? Are they encrypted also?

[brennodewinter]

What you encrypt is a disc (or space that the computer will see as a disc). So a virus will be encrypted just as other data. However a virusscan will detect it just as with a regular disc. The only thing is that you need to have it mounted.

I have no experience with RAID. I have no clue if it works.

[knowdober]

No.. once the hard-drive is encrypted all new files will be encrypted as you write them automatically.

[man1utdfan]

Prachtig engels Brenno!

hahaha, maar het is wel duidelijk!

[s3nke1]

This question is for anyone reading this,

why would you need your whole laptop/home computer encrypted?

[tanymas1]

Ok I went for it. I encrypted my entire disk. it took 15 hours!! Now everything including my virus scanner will still work I hope? Dunt understand about mounting. great video by the way it really helped me.

[fdzwes]

Thanks for good video. Question: I have programs running all the time (WinTV) even when I'm away. How can I keep those unencrypted but encrypt everything else while I'm away? When I create truecrypt volumes then try to install programs within the volume the installation can never complete because the programs must access the registry at boot up to complete installation. But the truecrypt volume is always dismounted (locked) at that point in boot up. Can you help?

[ChannelingusIV]

if anything goes wrong with your truecrypt system here's what I do to avoid this: Use a disk imaging program to do a full system back up and save it to an external drive INSIDE a truecrypt container on the external drive. If any thing gets screwed up you just restore the last full system backup. And it's still all encrypted.