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I have a 1 TB Seagate external HDD with 700 GB data. I want to put a password on it without any encryption.

I tried BitLocker but it takes 33 hours to encrypt the whole drive and I don't want to wait that long. I just want to put a simple password on it so my 11-year-old niece can't access it.

Is there any way I can do that?

Kamil Maciorowski
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Ace Knight
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2 Answers2

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There's a feature called an ATA password. It will protect your disk at its firmware level. In Linux use hdparm to manage the password, unlock the drive etc. I don't know how Windows deals with this though.

WARNING: My practical experience with ATA passwords is limited. I gathered some information and links below but you should do further research (possible starting point). You can brick your drive if you're not cautious enough.

Things to know:

  • If you boot from this particular disk your BIOS (or UEFI) will prompt you for password and unlock the drive. I've read that some BIOS-es don't accept uppercase letters nor special characters (example).
  • There is a user password and a master password. The master password is manufacturer specific and undocumented but you (or your niece) will find all kinds of information about factory presets on the web. It seems you can change any of them.
  • You said the disk is external. Your (USB?) enclosure may or may not reject the commands that manage ATA password. Some enclosures just don't support them.
Kamil Maciorowski
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What you are asking is not possible - you can't meaningfully lock a USB drive without encrypting it, as plugging it into another device will make it accessible.

Bitlocker is probably the best way to encrypt a drive for a Windows system, otherwise something like Veracrypt could work as well - but both these utilities are going to take a considerable amount of time to lock the drive. Depending on how full your drive is, you may be able to greatly reduce the amount of time bitlocker takes to encrypt it by turning on "Encrypt with used disk space only" - this will only encrypt the data in use on the drive, which means if you are only using 70 gigs it will take 1-4 hours.

davidgo
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