Re: How safe is my BIOS Power-on Password?

BIOS 'Password on Boot' is just a stumbling block, not real protection
against data theft. Even securing documents with a password is again
just something to slow down the determined thief. Unless you want to
go with full disk encryption, maybe just keeping data on a Thumb drive
(Encrypted) is a better choice. But that has the issue of loss, since they
are very easily misplaced.

Laptop drives are easily removed, so if the notebook is stolen the BIOS
password is pointless since it can be mounted in another machine to be
accessible. Windows Vista employs Bit-Locker Encryption and similar
type products are available for Windows XP.

If you do opt for any kind of Encryption make sure you have all the
keys, passcodes and other unlocking mechanisms backed up.



"pat_mc" <p_surname@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:pat_mc.36zpz6@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hi -

A short while ago I learnt that if I transfer my data from an NTFS to a
FAT32 harddrive I lose all my security features on the files.

Since I use a BIOS power-on password to protect the data on my laptop I
am now wondering if there is any point to doing so at all. Could an
unauthorised person not simply access my PC with a bootable Linux CD
such as Knoppix and copy all of my files over to a FAT32 external
drive?

Or will BIOS be smart enough and prevent the evil-doer from doing this?
If yes, how? If no, is there anything else I can do to be safe against
data theft in case of laptop theft?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

Pat


--
pat_mc


.

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