Re: how create hard drive password

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"Cowtoon" <Cowtoon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:2B460FC3-C513-45B0-AEF3-B807234731F7@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I have a laptop and want to setup a password for the hard drive, in addition
to the password for getting into windows xp.

Does anyone know how that's done. I'm wondering if it's something that's
setup in the bios????


Since no operating system is running at that point (where you want some password prompt to have access to the hard drive), just WHAT software do *you* want to be loaded before the OS loads to then execute those commands to present you with the prompt? Some software must run to provide you with that prompt and obviously the OS hasn't even loaded yet.

You could set a password in the BIOS. Alternatively, there are programs that usurp the bootstrap program in the MBR (master boot record, which is the first sector on the first BIOS-detected hard drive) to run their program to provide a password to decrypt your encrypted hard drive, but decrypting incurs overhead for the time to do the decryption so there will be a performance penalty. There are some laptops (IBM models, I think) that provide this same level of drive encryption along with a password for decryption within its BIOS.

Of course, it is highly unlikely that you have any real need despite your perception of such a need to encrypt or hide the operating system or the commercial applications since anyone could buy or steal a copy to get that code. So it is your data that you are trying to hide. You could use TrueCrypt for that to create encrypt container in which you keep your data files, and when you want to access that data you then open the container and get a password prompt to gain access.

.

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