Help: How to Password Protect my External HDD

[Crosly]

Hello, I have googled for answers on this but it keeps leaving me confused as well as the posts tend to be from years ago.

I only have Windows 10 Home so I don't have bit-locker.
And my External HDD is a Seagate Expansion 2TB. I have contacted Seagate and they don't offer protection with this HDD.

Basically all I want is that when I plug my External HDD into a PC or Laptop is that it asks for a password to access the data.

I have read that if I Encrypt it then it will only work on PC/Laptops I have Admin over. So for example if I plugged it into a friends it would not work?

I have also read to just password protect the files I want protected. Ideally I want the whole HDD protected but if just protecting the files is best I'd do that.

There is also a lot of choice in terms of software to use.
What do people recommend or use for that matter?

Thanks

 

[Steviepunk]

I still use Truecrypt for external backups (version 7.1 is the last working version) and this works fine for me.

I use an encryption file now rather than full drive encryption (thanks to losing 2 driver when it seems that Windows decided to update the partition table, screwing the Truecrypt data), but that works just as well.

Although it's not automatic, once you have attached the external drive, just open up Truecrypt and mount the encrypted file. That said, you may be able to setup an autorun file to launch TrueCrypt automatically.

 

[Semple]

Do you know anyone who has a pro version of Windows? (Work etc?), i'm fairly certain you can use the home-edition to open/close the bitlocker drive, but just the pro versions in order to set up the encryption.

 

[Disco_P]

Yeah my bitlocker drives work fine on windows home pcs. Not sure whether you can change the password on a home version though.

 

[Hyburnate]

What about VeraCrypt?