You could be wrapping up your external hard drives, putting a bow on top, and then handing them to a thief. One of the top problems with external hard drives is that they’re very easy to steal.
But when external hard drives are stolen, you don’t just lose the drives—you also lose all of the data on them. Some thieves won’t care about the data; they’re just going to replace your data with their data. But some thieves will look through your data for anything else they can steal—passwords to your PayPal account, credit card information, even your home address so they can steal your identity.
How To Keep External Hard Drives Safe
You can do two things to keep your external hard drives safe: prevent your external hard drives from being stolen and prevent your data from falling into the wrong hands.
Physical security can be easy or hard depending on your situation. If you travel around a lot, the best option is to lock your external disk drives to something solid—like a desk. Most external hard drives include hardware that lets them use $20 laptop security chains.
Admittedly, locking down your external hard drives looks lame, but if you’re a poor college student, it’s a lot better than losing your external hard drives—and your almost-finished term paper.
You can also enhance the security of your external hard drives by permanently labeling them as belonging to you. Use cheap engraving tools from the dollar store and make sure thieves will see your mark before they steal your external hard drives.
Keeping Stolen External Hard Drives Secure
But if your external hard drives are stolen despite your protective measures, you don’t need to despair of handing your most sensitive documents over to some random thief.
You can secure your external hard drives by installing basic encryption software on your computer. The encrypted external hard drives can’t be read by anyone without your password. (Short passwords can be easily cracked, so make it a long password.)
Why doesn’t everyone encrypt their external hard drives? Three reasons stand out:
1. It requires special software—and that software needs to be installed on all the computers that use the external hard drives.
Worse, you can’t store the software on typical hard drives because you need the software in order to access the external hard drives. It’s a chicken-and-egg problem.
2. Encryption slows down the drive a little bit.
3. You lose all access to the data on the drive if you forget your password. There’s no password recovery service. (Although you can download free password cracking software that will slowly try to break your password.)
Still, I highly recommend encryption to anyone who keeps secure files on their external hard drives.
A Hidden Security Risk On External Hard Drives
You probably know that Windows will automatically run a program installed to a special file on external hard drives. Viruses install themselves into this special file so that they can spread to all the computers you use your external hard drives on.
This is one of the most common ways to get a virus these days because most anti-virus software can’t block these autorun applications.
Any virus on any computer you use can infect your external hard drives, and any computer you connect to can catch a virus from your external hard drives, so be extra careful about connecting to strange computers.
There is no doubt that we all need an external hard drive to use as a backup storage device for all of those important computer files we need to keep safe. An external hard drive is not the only way to save your files though. Here are 5 backup storage devices, but keep in mind that they all have their own unique security risks.
If you have any tips to make your files more secure please share them with us by leaving your comment below.
Hi guys! I am a computer freak who is obsessed with computer tips, building websites, money making. Finger in every pie, love working, addicted to caffeine. Multi multi tasker, likes juggling ten jobs, should have joined the circus. Ha Ha!
Great Tips, Thanks a Lot for Sharing! I normally used external hard drives for data backups, these tips definitely facilitates me to prevent my external drives from Viruses!
My external hard disk drive seems to connect on some days and not connect on other days. I mean, nothing inside it is recognized by the PC on these days. I wish that a thief steals this one so that he can experience the same agony as me and I can buy a new solid state pendrive for my purposes! Which do you think is better? External harddrive or pendrive?
Raj’s recent post ..3 Simple Things to Remember About Your Content Strategy
Twitter: WindowsTalk
says:
Hi Raj. I use both external drives as well as small USB thumb (or pen) drives to back up my data. Have you tried connecting your external drive to another USB port?
James M. Fisher’s recent post ..VIPRE “2 Years for New Years” Sale
Twitter: tips4pc
says:
I cannot survive with a pendrive alone. I need more space!
mitz’s recent post ..The PC Repair Technician’s Secret Weapon – PowerSuite Golden
Twitter: Janis167
says:
Can’t you encrypt the info and add a strong password?
Great post. What is the most cheap but dependable antivirus you can recommend? I am currently using AVG but I really wanted to switch.
Twitter: WindowsTalk
says:
I recommend VIPRE, with has a New Years special on until January 31st: http://www.windowstalk.org/2011/12/vipre-2-years-for-new-years-sale/
It’s a perfect low cost solution for you. It easily allows verticle and horizontal solutions. It boasts complete PnP expansion.
KATHLEEN’s recent post ..Sprint Technique Drills
Twitter: tips4pc
says:
Yes I agree it is a low cost option. The prices did go up though because there was a shortage of hard drives manufactured, but this is getting better now.
mitz’s recent post ..Windows Computer Tips
I know this is very helpful so I want to share this to my friends and families too…They need this as well..
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Twitter: tips4pc
says:
Yes Margoax
I have about 5 but I am a nut!
Everyone should have an external hard drive!
mitz’s recent post ..5 Top Windows 7 Tips
Hey Mitz,
Thanks for sharing these security tips because I have a lot of sensitive data on my external hard drive and I would be very upset if a thief was to get a hold of this information.
I have heard of installing an encryption software but I wasn’t sure about how to go about it. Thanks again for sharing, is there any specific software you would recommend to use to install the encryption?
John@Guitar Lessons For Beginners’s recent post ..Fundamental Classical Guitar Lessons For Beginners
Twitter: tips4pc
says:
Hi John
Yes we must protect our precious files.
mitz’s recent post ..5 Tricks To Get A Deal On Cheap Website Hosting
Hi James,
Great post you have here! I have and external hardrive but I’m not bringing them with me when I’m traveling and I don’t have any special files their it is just my collection of movies
But I have a little problem with my external HD because it is created with a metal cover sometimes I’m electrified by it 
can you help me? Even though the electricity is isn’t that strong but it still hurts huhuhu.
Brandi W. Howell’s recent post ..MLM success
To me the whole point of the hard drive is to have it for travel.
Well Don don@Dentist in Danville Indiana we have different ways of using our HD and I respect your ways of using it. @mitz: I thiink it started acting like this when it fell accidentally. I will try to open it after I post this
Thanks.
Brandi W. Howell’s recent post ..Direct Sales opportunities
Twitter: tips4pc
says:
Hi there
Did you put this external hard drive together or was it bought like that. I have seen the same problem when the hard drive was not connected properly inside the case. Also if there are some screws missing on the case.
I would be getting a new one if you can’t solve the problem. You could just buy a new case to fit your hard drive.
mitz’s recent post ..Computer Quiz V11
Twitter: harpreet4564
says:
Thanks to share a great tips.external hard drive don’t loss on a pc.it’s a very low cost and easy way to transfer a data from one pc to another.
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I agree with you. Stealing hard drives can be easy because it can be dismantled easily. Ii am sure a lot of computer shops out there also had this problem. But with the solution to this, there is an assurance that people who are stealing hard drives will have difficulty or may no longer decide to steal one again.
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Twitter: techsparx1
says:
hello
thnx for the complete information really it was very helpful for me actually me seagatte hardisk get crash two times thnx a lot for these security options
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Twitter: willyanderson87
says:
Wow nice info really helpful also, We can sell any body with out tension of stealing data. Thanks for sharing info.
William Anderson’s recent post ..motivation blog
I have the same fear with my laptop, apart from a strong password, ehat else ca I do to keep my info safe?
Great review! This seem a great hard drive protection. I’ll keep this in mind if it’s time to switch
or change my pc protection.
Joseph’s recent post ..AVG Antivirus Review
I’m looking at something around $100.00
joyce’s recent post ..3D Television Reviews
Twitter: tips4pc
says:
Hi Joyce
The price of hard drive went up before Christmas but will come down again very soon. I suggest you wait a little longer. I bought a 3TB external hard drive for $120 and now they are over $200 on amazon.com.
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Great article. I have have to much important data on my hard drive to have in get a virus or stolen.
I have an external hard drive (time capsule) and syncronized with my time machine it never have had a trouble. I use some pendrives, too, they get wrong sometimes. The most secure data storage is to use an ext. hdd and burn some dvd-s every month. (big companies do so, too)
Cindy’s recent post ..Problems with wisdom teeth
To make sure you secure your data or files no matter what happen to your computer, use Cloud storage. This is very useful and reliable in securing your valuable data.
Joseph’s recent post ..AVG Antivirus Review
These tips will help anyone who uses an external harddrive. You just can’t afford to lose it because we often store a lot of important data in it. I’ll keep your tips in mind.
Anita Richard’s recent post ..Review of Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
Hey,
nice article now i know how to safe my harddrive right thank you. A friend siad to me, i should use truecrypt or something to secure my data. I’m happy that i dont have very important datas on external harddrive or something. The important datas are on the harddrive in my pc at home and there are the datas safe
.
Great tips and very valuable informations , thank you
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Yes, also agree with doing blog commenting because it gives you quick result but with Quality,
Great tips Mitz! This is really useful since everyone of us are afraid to lose our files… Thank you for sharing this informative post.
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Hi Mitz,
Hope your holidays were fabulous. Yuck, external hard drives. A gift from heaven and a problem for the devil!! I try very hard to remember not to put anything that I don’t want stolen on them, which almost defeats their purpose. But having gone thru a stolen laptop recently, I am way more careful than I was. Changing those passwords and user ids were a nightmare. I do have an online back up through my business and that helps. Terrific article, I’ll share it with friends.
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Thanks for sharing this tips…Its very useful..
joyce’s recent post ..Chamonix France
hey thanks for the tips i feel like this is really useful.
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Dear Friends,
My thanks for nice tips.
I am using a pendrive of 4GB for my personal data,papers, CV’s,seminars, copies of passport, ID etc, including fingerprint sensor. Data are safe, if I lose it its only the cost of hardware. I always have it in my pocket to reach whatever personal info I want. Its cheap enough and robust. Its 2 years that I am using it trouble free. I always have a backup of it at home.
Thank you in advance
Stavros
These kind of new application could really bring’s a security in our life.. Wish you all the best and thank’s a lot.
JennyGreyson’s recent post ..RSA Certificate
These are some really great tips. I have an external hard drive that I always keep home, so I don’t really have to worry about it getting stolen. I have another smaller hard drive that is more portable, and I always make sure not to save any personal information on it. And you can’t emphasize how important it is to backup all your files to multiple locations, that way even if your hard drive gets stole or corrupted you still have all your files.
Trevor
Twitter: technicallyeasy
says:
Security is probably many people don’t think about when it comes to backing up data to an external hard drive. I know, because I am one of them. Encryption seems to be a logical solution, so long as you remember the password. I guess the extreme step is to completely lock up your hard drive until you need it in a safe or something like that.
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