I have a desk full of USB flash drives I'm prone to lose if I take them out. It's not that I care much about losing the hard¬ware; most of the drives are small freebies from trade shows. But I do care about the data that's on them-data not just anyone should see. You likely have the same problem. Solution: Use TrueCrypt to create an encrypted area on your drive. It's like buying a fancy, encrypted USB thumbdrive, only cheaper. And the extra effort nec¬essary to encrypt the drive is minimal. Now my data stays protected even if I lose the drive I've stored it on.

Open TrueCrypt, and pick Create Volume. Leave the first option, Create an encrypted file container, selected, and click Next. Choose Standard TrueCrypt volume, and click Nexr.

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Navigate to the root of the USB flash drive, and then type a file name for the container. This file container will house the items that are encrypted. Click Save.
Now click Next. Leave AES encryption on and pick the Whirlpool hash algorithm (see the screenshot). Click Next. Enter how much space you want for encrypted items; click Next. Enter a password; click Next. Follow the final prompt that appears, and click Format.

Open TrueCrypt to mount the encrypted area. Choose Select File, pick the encrypted file area, and click Open. ILgillight an unused drive letter, and click Mount. Enter the password. Windows will mount the encrypted area to that Particular drive letter. Be sure to click Dismount in TrueCrypt before yanking the flash drive out of the Pc.