I don't think you're paranoid. There are several utilities that will password protect usb drives. They're undoubtedly not bullet proof but might be better than nothing.
Here's one (I haven't tried it): http://www.password-protect-software.com/protect-folders.html It's paid software but you can download a 30 day trial which is probably all that's needed. It's for Windows but there's probably something similar for Mac (if that's what you use). Cheers Brian ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Brian Walters Western Sydney Australia http://lyons-ryan.org/southernlight/ On Thursday, November 10, 2011 10:06 PM, "Mark C" <[email protected]> wrote: > I recently commented that one of my 3TB external drives went bad - > apparently it is the housing only, since the drive will run fine for > about 10 minutes and the just disappear from the computer. After it is > unplugged and off for a while, it works fine again (for another 10 > minutes or so.) I have two backups of the drive - one is a few months > old and is offsite, the other is a local copy. WHen I realized the my > other 3TB drive had the *only* copy of several hundred images I got > worried and bought another drive. It took almost 2 days via USB 2 but I > now have two local copies again.... > > OK - the paranoia part: Turns out that the drive that has crapped out is > under warranty still. Yea! So I have to send it into Western Digital. I > can't wipe the drive (it would take a lot longer than 10 minutes to wipe > a 3TB drive) and I am hesitating about sending off a functional drive > (albeit in a bad enclosure) with virtually every photo I have taken in > the last 10 years on it (all 122,000 of them). We have everyting from > 35mm film scans, MF scans, and every image form a digital camera since > my first 3.3mp Coolpix. All my snowflakes, all the stuff that is in my > book, full layouts of all the cards I used to make for art fairs (front > and back), all sorts of stuff. There is nothing embarrassing or > compromising on the drive - aside from the fact that 90+% of the photos > absolutely suck - but I balk at just blithely sending off all these > images to who knows where... Am I being unduly paranoid? (As opposed to > duly paranoid...) > > Maybe I should just shell out a few bucks for a new enclosure or see if > I can salvage the drive and put in my PC.... > > Any thoughts? > > Mark > -- -- http://www.fastmail.fm - The professional email service -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
