USB flash drive security on mac and windows

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USB flash drive security on mac and windows

Hi

I've got an USB flash drive and I would like to secure it so that data on it will not be accessible unless a password is provided.

The point is that I need to use it on both my macbook with tiger OS and on another PC with windows XP.

The USB flash drive is a sandisk cruzer titanium that comes with U3. Originally I was using an U3 protection that asks for a password when the flash drive is plugged in.
U3 is not supported by MAC so I had to disable the password protection to use it on my brand new macbook.

Appreciate any help
Thanks, Ste

macbook c2d Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Posted on Dec 10, 2006 6:14 AM

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Answer 1

Dec 10, 2006 12:44 PM in response to stecol

Why don't you create a disk image and customize it to fit the drive using Applications>Utilities>Disk Utility? You can password protect it and it is encrypted.

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Answer 2

stecol Author

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Dec 15, 2006 2:07 AM in response to stecol

Once I created an image on the flash drive and secured it with a password on the MAC, will I be able to access it also from windows (by using the same password)?

Thanks, Stefano

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Answer 3

Rob Roye

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40 points

Dec 15, 2006 7:47 AM in response to stecol

You will be able to open it if you make it a .iso image. There is software available for both OSes to open and browse/modify a .iso image file. I do not know how well any of them use passwords for the images.

What I would recommend is using Winrar ( http://www.rarlabs.com/) and just using a compresses and encrypted file that both OS's can manipulate.

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Answer 4

stecol Author

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Dec 26, 2006 2:35 PM in response to Rob Roye

You will be able to open it if you make it a .iso
image. There is software available for both OSes to
open and browse/modify a .iso image file. I do not
know how well any of them use passwords for the
images.

Maybe it's winiso

What I would recommend is using Winrar
( http://www.rarlabs.com/) and just using a compresses
and encrypted file that both OS's can manipulate.

With winrar you create an archive and then each time you want to edit a file you have to extract it, modify it and then reinsert it in the archive.

What I was looking for is something more user friendly.
Images created with mac, protected with a password, are ok but are not compatible with windows.
Viceversa, U3 is compatible with windows but not mac ...

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