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lakerlandb

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 18, 2011
1
0
Is there anyway to password protect an external hard drive without encrypting it?

I'm trying to do this with a 1 TB Lacie external hard drive.

I don't want to encrypt it because I was I don't have enough space to do so since it is 1 TB and it's almost full.

How can I do this?

Using Mac OS X Lion.

Thanks.
 

jason221

macrumors 6502
Jun 26, 2009
400
0
The only way I know how to do that is to plug the external drive into the USB port in the back of an Airport Extreme, create accounts for it in the Airport preferences, and then access the drive via wireless or ethernet. If you don't have an Airport Extreme, no idea. That method is far from foolproof, though; if someone really wanted to get into your external drive, they could just unplug it from the Airport Extreme and plug it into a computer directly.
 

MCSN

macrumors regular
Feb 7, 2012
103
0
Kayenta
Searching for threads to thread on

Umm, so I see that this thread is 2011, but since it isn't archived, I just want to put in my hat into the ring on this.

So far, I've found in these threads and forums searches that encrypting the lacie can be done in lion by the disk utility. there's some mumbo jumbo about setting the password for the device. i remember but can't begin to peck, paste and quote, wherefore I got that info, but it both said it would set the administrator password as the encryption password, or that you could set it. Okay where ever and whoever said that isn't here. lol

My experience was that I tried to encrypt my disk which was already partitioned and non encrypted. I went to see if I could use lacies version of disk management and could not open the utility in lion.

So then in disk utility, you can't encrypt the partitions at all with the information contained. You have to migrate the entire tome, which comes rife with explicit permissions and ghost files and images that are non transferrable or deletable. So then once you transfer everything to another external that substitutes for the external you are focusing on, which is another security issue. lol. And by having to do so incrementally to avoid the problem files.

Then, you can os extended journal encrypt wiping out the partitions in the lacie. however it doesn't set the system password. or maybe it did and isn't recognizing it as it self-undocks multiple times and notifies you it doesn't like being encrypted. Then it will ask you for the password, and you just pray every time that the rejection of the password does not one day prevent you from accessing the drive, and questioning the security of the information from being accessed by yourself, much less others. especially since being able to spotlight is the highlight of having a connected external with encryption, and lacie says you can power by usb or firewire and then has problems using the power or damaging the power on the macbook pros, and all the soft power problems that develop with those connections and overheating and the like.

It just depends I guess, I don't know much, I don't know what I"m doing really. But that was what I got out of the materials.

It will put a password on your drive, without you even setting it. And won't tell you what it is. And isn't that what we are all looking for? lol. No seriously I have no idea how to password protect a drive, except with the company software for the device you are protecting. Like a thumb drive. It will have its own password software on it.
 
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