# [SOLVED] Password Protection for Western Digital Essential External Hard Drive



## ajthevapor99 (Jan 9, 2010)

Cheers,

I had a friend playing on my laptop in my office the other day which is networked onto all the computers I own (office laptop, home network server, studio desktop [I'm a musician], and my personal home desktop). He managed to find my 1TB Western Digital Essential External Hard Drive which was plugged into my home desktop. He got to screwing around and deleted some of my personal files (spreadsheets, word documents, etc.) and rather than have this happen again I would like to install password protection on it. All of my computers have access to my "network" if their hooked into the internet but, he knows that password as do a lot of my friends and some colleagues. They really can't access anything of importance unless they manage to get onto my home desktop and find my external hard drive which contains backups of everything I own. I'd like to install a password on it (non-encryption) to prevent people from messing with it and also so if I was to bring it into the office currently no one but me could access it. Suggestions? I'm not very good at finding this kind of protection, apparently. Thanks for any help.


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## IT-Tech (Oct 12, 2009)

*Re: Password Protection for Western Digital Essential External Hard Drive*

Hi and welcome!

The first thing I personally need to understand is how did he get to the systems and get to the information?

Do you use system passwords and so forth?

Is the drive NTFS formatted?

Thanks!


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## ajthevapor99 (Jan 9, 2010)

*Re: Password Protection for Western Digital Essential External Hard Drive*

I have a home network setup that runs all of my computers off of a personal server. Thus when I'm at the office all I have to do is plug my laptop into the internet and open it up to be able to access the home server. Yes it is password protected but, none of my computers are. Like I said before I try to keep all pertinent information stockpiled on my external hard drives. So one would assume that he opened up the network connections, put in the password like he's done countless times before, went to my home desktop, and opened the external hard drive. I don't know if the drive is NTFS or not


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

*Re: Password Protection for Western Digital Essential External Hard Drive*

The simplest solution would be to turn off/disconnect the drive you don't want accessed.
There is a multitude of softwares available to lock/password protect drives-partitions-folders available.


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## ajthevapor99 (Jan 9, 2010)

*Re: Password Protection for Western Digital Essential External Hard Drive*

Well I've tried using truecrypt and storagecrypt but both of those encryption setups has failed. I just want a simple password non-partioning, non-encrypting, program to keep my files safe from morons. Also, I will not just "unplug" it when not in use, perhaps if you could read you would have seen that is not the option here f*tard!


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

*Re: Password Protection for Western Digital Essential External Hard Drive*



ajthevapor99 said:


> Well I've tried using truecrypt and storagecrypt but both of those encryption setups has failed. I just want a simple password non-partioning, non-encrypting, program to keep my files safe from morons. Also, I will not just "unplug" it when not in use, perhaps if you could read you would have seen that is not the option here f*tard!


Perhaps there was some participant error involved installing/using True Crypt?
If installing/using that type of software is beyond your skills perhaps someone else could assist you?
Storing data that contains backup for "everything you own" should not be accessible to others. 
To repeat myself *There is a multitude of softwares available to lock/password protect drives-partitions-folders available.* Google is your friend.
On a side note, using a prebuilt external drive is not a reliable means of critical/important data storage. Best of Luck!


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## IT-Tech (Oct 12, 2009)

*Re: Password Protection for Western Digital Essential External Hard Drive*



ajthevapor99 said:


> Well I've tried using truecrypt and storagecrypt but both of those encryption setups has failed. I just want a simple password non-partioning, non-encrypting, program to keep my files safe from morons. Also, I will not just "unplug" it when not in use, perhaps if you could read you would have seen that is not the option here f*tard!


Simplest thing to do is set system passwords, provide your friend with their own login, and set the NTFS permissions on the important stuff to deny them access.

To find out if the drive is NTFS, go to MY COMPUTER, right click on the drive, PROPERTIES... Look at the FILES SYSTEM just below the type.

Thanks and good luck!


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## ajthevapor99 (Jan 9, 2010)

*Re: Password Protection for Western Digital Essential External Hard Drive*

Resolved purchased Folder Lock this morning. Works great and did exactly what I needed. Put a password on my hard drive so only me and my girlfriend can access it! Thanks for the help guys!


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## IT-Tech (Oct 12, 2009)

*Re: Password Protection for Western Digital Essential External Hard Drive*

Thanks for the update!

Please mark your thread as SOLVED using the THREAD TOOLS!

Thanks!


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