Encrypt USB drive

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What I'm after is something that encrypts a USB drive which can then be plugged into another PC/laptop where it will prompt the user for a password so that they can gain access to the contents.

Have already done a search and have tried TrueCrypt but the problem is that TrueCrypt portable needs admin perms when it first starts which the users won't have. I've also tried FreeOTFE but that suffers from the same problem.

Is there anything else out there that I can try. Needs to be essentially plug and play to some extent.
 
I don't know of any well developed software that meets those specs im afraid, i.e being portable & not requiring admin privileges. There is no doubt some commercial software for this out there somewhere though. Another option might be to get a USB flash drive that ships with inbuilt manufacture crypto software, not hugely secure though.

However, in my undergraduate thesis I developed something exactly like this (exactly for the reasons you outlined). It runs directly off USB sticks, no installation required and works with non-admin privilidges on many operating systems. It creates an encrypted container inside an existing file system, much like true crypt. It uses the AES-256 algorithm, and is securely designed. I wouldn't obviously say use it for mission critical files as clearly only I was involved in development and it hasn't had any where near the scrutiny of Truecrypt. That said, for general use it should offer very good security.

If you can't find anything else maybe give it a spin, click.
 
The only solution that met my requirements (non-admin and very simple to use) was Bitlocker to Go. Unfortunately unless you have all Windows 7 machines it's a bit limited. It works an absolute charm with W7, and is read-only compatible with Vista and XP (which to be fair is great, but could be a showstopper)

I got all sorts of ridiculous quotes for commercial encryption software which didn't look easy to use nor reliable. As crazy as it sounds it was cheaper in my case to upgrade to Windows 7.
 
Ironkey is a fantastic little usb pen, not cheap but very much worth it, and it comes with access to speedy proxies (via firefox) in the usa :) Just make sure you never forget your password :D

However I'm not sure it fits the ops needs, and there are cheaper encrypted usb pens. I'd really like some form of software I could use on a usb pen like the op but I'm finding myself asking why, after so many years, isn't there a popular common method of doing this yet?
 
Yes we got over 200 ironkey at work they are really rather good and can be locked/unlocked without admin rights and are extremely robust.

But, as has been said they might be a little bit out of your scope.
 
I bought a couple of the Integral encryted sticks.

Stick in it a Windows machine, a screen pops up that lets you login - give it your password and away you go.

Has worked fine on Windows 7, XP and Server 2008.

Got them from a well know world of computers (I was caught short for a thumb drive!!) and they were quite cheap.
 
Thanks for all the replies.

After talking to the users who had already gone out and purchased a few 1TB USB drives it seems that all they wanted was more encrypted disk space on their laptops. Their current laptops have BeCrypt installed and there is around 178gb of unpartitioned disk space so we've solved the problem by partitioning the free space and encrypting it using BeCrypt.

God knows how it got as far as purchasing external disks to be honest when all that was required was just to talk to the end users.
 
IIRC Toucan can encrypt (as well as do backup stuff) and the binaries are either self contained or it has a portable version, check the portableapps site, think tis on there
 
FreeOTFE the best solution

What I'm after is something that encrypts a USB drive which can then be plugged into another PC/laptop where it will prompt the user for a password so that they can gain access to the contents.

Have already done a search and have tried TrueCrypt but the problem is that TrueCrypt portable needs admin perms when it first starts which the users won't have. I've also tried FreeOTFE but that suffers from the same problem

FreeOTFE doesn't have that problem - take a look at FreeOTFE Explorer. You don't need any special privileges to use it, wheres you have to have administrator rights before you can even start Truecrypt
 
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