Password protecting a USB hard drive in a restricted work environment

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Bayou Tiger
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Right now I am using a SmartDisk FireLite 60 GB USB removable hard drive to store information from work and home. Does anybody know how to password-protect the entire disk or select folders on the disk?

There are a few software tools on the market, but I was hoping somebody has some personal experience. The secure information needs to be accessible from our heavily-adminned computer environment at work. Thanks for any ideas!
 

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First you can try working with OS security settings like in XP Pro, let alone 'real' OSs like limiting the access, configure the windows encrypting file system etc depending what your drive supports. Then there are a number of software for (you can start from some software 'portal', like www.snapfiles.com ) controlling folder permissions like 'folder security' etc., but those can leave the data accessible by working only locally, then you can encrypt the drive filesystem (quick and easy although not as secure as ...), encrypting the whole drive (or parts of it) or using a software which encrypts the drive and accesses it 'realtime' via the encryption key, locks the thing up completely. ... what else is there :confused:
 
The Gizmo drive I purchased from Crucial.com came with a security program that unlocks a hidden portion of the drive. Maybe Crucial can tell you where to get it.