Laptops, external drives, and USB sticks are especially vulnerable to data theft, but with Windows and a few tools, you can ...

USB drives, external HDDs, and memory cards—remains the go-to for transferring and backing up data. But these devices are also among the easies ...

How to encrypt PCs and USB drives in Windows Home edition Since device encryption and BitLocker are not available on Windows Home editions, most Windows users will need a third-party encryption ...

BitLocker is Windows' built-in encryption feature that helps combat many data breach problems in the digital era. You can apply it to encrypt your hard drive and other storage devices.

Insert your USB thumb drive in to a USB port on a computer running the Ultimate or Enterprise edition of Windows 7. It's OK to have data on the thumb drive when using BitLocker.

To protect an external drive with BitLocker to Go, first connect the drive to a USB port and wait for Windows to recognize it and assign a drive letter. Switch to Desktop mode, open File Explorer ...

Encrypting a hard drive protects data and can be legally required, choose whole-drive encryption for the safest option. Back up important data, use Windows BitLocker or Veracrypt for encryption.

Then browse the hierarchical menu structure, moving from Open Computer Configuration to Administrative Templates to Windows Components to BitLocker Drive Encryption to Operating System Drives.

The BitLocker encryption built into higher-end versions of Windows Vista goes a long way toward locking out intruders at the boot-drive level, but it's neither 100% hassle-free nor 100% secure.