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[NDSUBison]

I will be using my Maxtor BlackArmor primarily as a storage unit for research data. However, so far I am unable to use it on

the university computers. I do not even get the pop-up prompt that would allow me to unlock the unit. Instead I get a mesage

that says something about me not being able to run the system as I do not have administrative rights. How to get around this

?

[DLocO]

Unfortunately the BlackArmor security management requires administrative rights.  Without administrative rights you cannot unlock the drive.

[Sarah]

I purchased this portable drive to password protect my work files but like you I need Administrative Rights preventing me from even using the portable drive at work...completely defeating the purpose of my purchase.

[jimmR]

I spoke to Maxtor tech support 1/26/09.    Per them, you need to have someone with admin privileges install the maxtor manager on the computer  where you want to use this drive .  I did the initial set up on my home computer which has you set up a password.  I am have submitted a request to have the tech support at my work install this manager......I will let you know if it works.  I am pretty sure you have to give the admin priv tech support person your password used for your initial set up on whichever computer you have admin privileges.  Or you just have the admin tech support set up a password and tell you what it is.

If you can't get admin tech support...this drive is not going to help you much...even then.....it will only work at the network computer where you had the software installed.

Good luck to the both of us.

[Sarah]

Thank you for your information.  Unfortunately I use multiple computers at work so it won't be useful for me to have it installed on the one computer.  I guess I'll use this one for my home computer backup.  I have another portable drive that is not software protected.  Do you know if a person can install a software program into a portable drive to require a password to gain access to the drive that would not require Administrative Rights to use

Thanks

[breezy]

[quote]I have another portable drive that is not software protected. Do you know if a person can install a software program into a portable drive to require a password to gain access to the drive that would not require Administrative Rights to use?[/quote]

Sure. A good program for turning a regular storage drive into a password protected, encrypted drive, is Truecrypt. It doesn't cost anything to use, and I have used it with no problems at all. What you will do is create a "virtual drive" on your storage device, and specify how many Megabytes or Gigabytes you want it to be. You may want to make the entire device password protected, or just half of it, or just a small portion, depending on your needs.

To access the encrypted file, though, you will have to use TrueCrypt, and your computers at work or at a public library won't have it installed. One option, and I have not tried it to see if it will work, is to have TrueCrypt on the same drive that you encrypt, but on the space that you have left free. For example, on a 2 GB usb flash device, encrypt 1 GB, and save TrueCrypt on the uncrypted, 2nd GB, then use TrueCrypt to open the encrypted portion.

Message Edited by breezy on 02-07-2009 02:29 PM

[breezy]

I've just tested my own device to see if what I described above will work, and yes, it does. TrueCrypt has a "Traveler Mode." But by putting it in Traveler Mode, it gave me a warning saying that I might have to have Administrator Privileges where I open it. My computer isn't set to require Administrator Privileges, so it wasn't a problem for me.

Here's the prompt I was given by TrueCrypt:

Note that if you decide to run TrueCrypt in Traveler mode (as opposed to running an installed copy of TrueCrypt) the system will ask you for permission to run TrueCrypt (UAC prompt) every time you run it.

The reason is that when you run TrueCrypt in traveler mode, TrueCrypt needs to load and start the device driver. ...Therefore the system will ask you to run TrueCrypt with administrator Privileges (UAC prompt).

So using a storage device encrpyted with TrueCrypt will likely cause you to run into the same problem you ran into with Black Armor.

Message Edited by breezy on 02-07-2009 03:08 PM