Q: Encrypting a new usb stick. Error message, "A GUID Partition Table (GPT) partitioning scheme is required."

You need to insert the flash drive, open Appleications > Utilities > Disk Utility and select the flash drive from the left sidebar panel.  In the main panel select the Partition button ffrom the top of that panel, and select the number of partitions you want, click the patition and give it a name, then select the format (default is Mac OS Extended (Journaled)) and the parttition table (default is GUID).  Then apply that and the drive should meet the requirements.

USB thumb drives come already preformatted with a Master Boot Record (MBR) partition map and likely a FAT32 format or even exFAT formatting because they are most commonly used with Windows PC's and also a Mac can read and write to them.

Your attempting to encrypt the thumb drive, thus OS X requires it to be formatted GUID and likely OS X Extended Journled as the drive format in your Utilities > Disk Utility first.

When you format the drive, all data on it will be removed.

If your looking for a safer and easier external encrypted thumb drive, I suggest a Iron Key and/or a drive from DataLocker.

http://www.datalocker.com/products/datalocker-dl3.html

Both are based on self-encryption, thus there is no software required (glitchy) and they can be taken to other machines and used.

Just to let you know, hardware and operating system makers like Apple give revolving door access to governments and law enforcement, so at any time they can install software on your machine that can peak at the files when they are unencrypted or gleam passwords.

The only truley secure machine is a new one that is used totally offline and inside a Faraday Cage.

Just to let you know, hardware and operating system makers like Apple give revolving door access to governments and law enforcement, so at any time they can install software on your machine that can peak at the files when they are unencrypted or gleam passwords.

This statement is completely without any known basis in fact.

Maybe unknown to you, but very well known to those of us who follow what's happening in the world:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-da ta

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/26/snowden-nsa_n_4668661.html

Just read up and stop being naive. Do you really think that the government which admitted (only when caught of course) spying on Angela Merkel will be honest with you and respect YOUR right to privacy? Come on... wake up and smell the coffee.

If you want to lose your information on disk then sugestion from Ralph is wright direction for you or if you have important info which you want to crypt then your steps are next:

1. convert MBR to GPT here si how to http://www.computerknow.org/2013/09/changing-mbr-to-gpt-in-mac-os-x.html

2. Crypt your disk http://www.macworld.com/article/1168077/encrypt_any_disk_in_mountain_lion.html

3 Smile because you are DONE

Just to say that I've tried the above and, scary as it was, it worked.

For lame users like me: The gdisk application (described in step 1) is dead easy to install. You'll need the name of the device in order to use gdisk, which can be found by typing diskutil list in the Terminal.

Hello community,

I just bought a Kingston USB Stick of 32GB and I wanted to set a password for it. I followed the simple steps below:

1. Insert your NEW* USB stick.

2. Go to Disk Utility (to do it fast: Spotlight>Disk Utility),

3. Go to the left sidebar and choose your USB which is appeared in the External option.

4. On top of the window you will see the icons First Aid, Partition, Erase, Unmount and Info (Choose Erase).

5. Next you will have to name your USB and make sure that the Format is OS X Extended (Journaled).

6. Write and confirm your password,

7. Fill the required field with a hint,

8. Click Erase,

9. The encryption process just started,

10. Do not eject your USB for some time (I do not know how much).

*If you have an old USB stick and you simply want to add a password you have to save your data somewhere else first, before starting the process, because you will lost them.

To make sure that your USB has been encrypted you can either double click on USB's icon and click Get Info or go to Disk Utility and choose Info on top of the window and you will get a piece of information for your USB (3rd Picture_Is Encrypted---Yes). Take a look at the pictures below.

My System: iMac (Late 2014) with OS X El Capitan.

Hope I helped!

Good luck!

John

The 'gdisk' does not work with Latest OS X. I was struggling with this as well. finally after rigorous search found article

http://coolestguidesontheplanet.com/format-usb-external-disk-mac-osx-using-disk- utility/

I did below to fix this issue:

1. sudo diskutil

2. diskutil list

3. here i found that the flash drive was showing as 'FDisk_partition_scheme'

4. ran 'diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ AddStorage disk2'

Above resolved the issue

Hope this helps!

When attempting to encrypt a new usb stick I get the error message, "A GUID Partition Table (GPT) partitioning scheme is required." OS X is 10.8.3.

How do I proceed?

i get the below answer from your site :

You need to insert the flash drive, open Appleications > Utilities > Disk Utility and select the flash drive from the left sidebar panel.  In the main panel select the Partition button ffrom the top of that panel, and select the number of partitions you want, click the patition and give it a name, then select the format (default is Mac OS Extended (Journaled)) and the parttition table (default is GUID).  Then apply that and the drive should meet the requirements.

BUT WHEN I SELECT THE PARTITION BUTTON , I CAN NOT SELECT , CAN NOT CLICK  ??? PLEASE LET ME KNOW THE SOLUTION ??????

I will share what worked for me, Dr. Hani. In Disk Utility I was highlighting the wrong drive listed on the left.

In my image below, I was highlighting 'Backup' and formatting it for OSX Extended, instead of the higher level folder 'Apple SDXC R...' as pictured. Once I performed the erase function at the highest level it allowed me to encrypt my SD card.