I come to the well of knowledge, and hope that no one peed into it (again)...

I have recently purchased a 250GB portable HDD.

I would like to create a 20GB encrypted partition (or vault) on the drive.

I want to be able to activate and un-activate the encryption ("get at my files") without having to install anything on the host computer.

More importantly, I want to be able to accomplish this WITHOUT NEEDING TO BE LOGGED IN AS ADMIN.

Things I have tried:
Cryptainer - needs admin and costs $45 for a 25GB partition

Bestcrypt - needs admin and caps out oat 4GB

Truecrypt Traveler Mode - Claims to not need to install anything, but every time I use it, it says that a driver is not properly loaded and please reboot or log out and then back in...

I am looking for any suggestions. Thanks.

OSs this will run on include XP (Home, Pro), Vista, W7.

 

I have no clue, but to help refine things a bit, do you need one 20GB partition/vault accessible by all of the operating systems or one 20GB partition/vault per each operating system?

 

One total. Just need somewhere to stash lots of work stuff when I travel, without the fear of prying eyes seeing client data.

 

If travel mode of TrueCrypt is acting up have you tried running TrueCrypt from your portable HDD? I have never used TrueCrypt on a portable device, but I do have a volume container and it works great.

How can I use TrueCrypt on a USB flash drive?

2. Create a TrueCrypt file container on the USB flash drive. If you leave enough space on the USB flash drive (choose an appropriate size for the TrueCrypt container), you will also be able to store TrueCrypt on the USB flash drive (along with the container – not in the container) and you will be able to run TrueCrypt from the USB flash drive (see also the chapter Traveler Mode in the TrueCrypt User Guide).

 

Bdog, thanks for the suggestion. I tried this and for some reason on an XP Pro machine with admin rights, I still got the same error about a driver not being loaded and to log out and then log back in, or reboot...

Maybe I will try to install it on the drive on a different machine...

 

to Bdog, I have also done the same thing successfully (on an XP Pro machine with admin rights)

 

All of our work PCs are encrypted with Safeguard Easy.

They have a removable media edition with a free trial:

http://www.sophos.com/products/enter...emovablemedia/

I've never used it, but if it's anything like the Enterprise edition, it's a winner, IMO.

 

Cool, I will check it out. I also want to try installing TrueCrypt from a different PC....

 

Why not just run as admin?

(I am assuming you are the admin, otherwise you would just ask you IT people to do this for you.)

 

I resorted to using Truecrypt and actually installing it on the two or three machines I own to avoid the driver loading issue, but it still doesn't help if I am in a business center of a hotel and need to get to the encrypted docs...

Brizey, sometimes I am at someone's house and they may not have admin, or I am in a business where I have not been given admin access, or a hotel business center, so I wanted something I could run on ANY computer, even one in kiosk mode.

Looks like Mr. Gates has thwarted my efforts with UAC.