0

In a separate post regarding the security level of "WD My Passport 2TB" external hard drive's built-in password encryption, Tom Leek answered in incredible detail that left the enquirer of the sensible and cautious opinion that he should add a 2nd level of encryption using software (he mentioned Truecrypt). I have just tried the same thing using the successor of Truecrypt being Veracrypt but am having severe problems in use. The file container created successfully and my data copied into the folder seamlessly. However, whenever I try to save a file from within Word it hangs any programs that are trying to access that double-encrypted drive and even Windows 7 Task Manager can't close the programs so I have to force a shutdown that risks corrupting data. Does anyone know what could be wrong here please e.g. should this 2nd level not work with "WD My Passport" drives & Veracrypt?

Many thanks for any help.

Improve this question
1
  • 1
    please add a link to the other post
    – anon01
    Mar 28, 2016 at 1:12

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

Honestly, I would just use Veracrypt. It is far better than WD's built-in protection, and is less likely to screw everything up. The way you are looking at it is like "Should I let people have 2 million years or 1 million years to crack the encryption?". The answer is it doesn't matter, so just stick with the easiest option.

Improve this answer
3
  • this does not answer the question asked, despite (maybe ) addressing practical concerns of the asker
    – anon01
    Mar 28, 2016 at 1:14
  • The question says: Is it not advisable to add a 2nd level of encryption to an already encrypted external hard drive? No, I would not say that is an advisable think to do. However, I DO have a 1TB WD My Passport external hard drive, I could try Veracrypt and the built-in encryption and see what happens.
    – user158283
    Mar 28, 2016 at 9:52
  • Thanks for answers.I tried Veracrypt - the file container created (tried both with WD password turned on & off) without problems and files can be copy/pasted etc., BUT when trying to save a docx from within "Word 2013" hung the whole system in Win7 losing unsaved data (task manager couldn't close anything). However, using latest valid Truecrypt 7.1a, all is fine. As the WD encryption is a different type of encryption to Truecrypt, I am hoping one doesn't make the other weaker. Does anyone have any certain knowledge of which type of encryptions are supposed to weaken one another please?
    – KDCrypt
    Mar 29, 2016 at 6:12

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .