We have seen in previous articles how to install TrueCrypt and create encrypted volumes. Now it’s time to look at how to use these encrypted volumes. (If you need a refresher on some of the earlier topics, please feel free to read Installing TrueCrypt and Creating a Basic TrueCrypt Volume on a USB Drive.)
Mounting a Volume
To begin, double click the TrueCrypt icon to initiate the program.
You should now see the TrueCrypt program. In the main window, select an available drive letter that you would like to use for the encrypted volume. Once you have successfully mounted the volume, this is the drive letter that will have all of your files. In our example, we are using the T: drive.
Since we are going to be mounting the encrypted USB drive volume that we created in the Creating a Basic TrueCrypt Volume on a USB Drive article, click on the Select Device… button in the Volume section of the window.
Select the appropriate encrypted device that you created earlier. In our example, we are using Harddisk 2:. Click OK.
You will now be prompted for a password. This is the password that you used to originally encrypt the volume (you do remember it, don’t you?). Enter the password and then click OK.
If you entered the correct password, you should now see a volume listing by the drive letter you chose earlier. You can now click Exit to close the TrueCrypt interface.
Now, go to My Computer. You will have a new drive letter T:. This is how you interact with the data in the encrypted volume. You simply treat it like any other disk drive.
Dismount a Volume
To dismount an excrypted volume, first ensure that you have no files open in the encrypted volume.
Warning: This is very important as will will receive errors when dismounting the volume and you may lose data or experience data corruption.
Start TrueCrypt and select the mounted volume. Click on Dismount.
That’s it! You will no longer see the encrypted volume mounted in My Computer.
Between Creating a Basic TrueCrypt Volume on a USB Drive and this article, you have now comleted the basics of using TrueCrypt. We can start moving into more complicated TrueCrypt usage. Stay tuned!
| Trackback link - http://www.dailycupoftech.com/using-a-truecrypt-volume/trackback/ |
|
October 21st, 2006 at 11:57 am
Thanks for the turtorials, good thoughts.
It may sound like a silly question, but what happens if I plug my USB-drive into a PC which does not have TrueCypt installed? How do I access my data?
June 18th, 2007 at 11:58 pm
I don’t think it’s a silly question - I have exactly the same one. I have client info on my USB drive & sometimes need to access it on a client’s PC. I’ve forgotten it at a client site before & don’t want anyone to be able to access the info. I’m guessing I’d need to have an unencrypted folder with the TrueCrypt installer to install it on the PC.
August 7th, 2007 at 5:47 am
TC is ok, but in my case I am afraid that it is not very helpful. I would like to encrypt large scale database used by my application. I would like that application would be able to use these data when running. But I do not want that application user would be able to
). It would be nice that only application will be able to gain access to the encrypted database and that mounting encrypted volumes will not be needed. But exist’s something like this anywhere?
access any part od the database. As I see this is not possbile with TC (or yes?), since you can not use data until you mount the volume. But this does no make any sense, since everybody can access decrypted data in the volume (also application
August 7th, 2007 at 7:17 pm
In general terms, there are ways to control access to a database, if you have control over how it is installed - although I’m not sure that Truecrypt can help you with that. For instance, Microsoft SQL Server can be set up so that an application can use a special password to unlock data, but the user can’t perform their own commands on the data. Of course, SQL Server itself runs in the background in its own user account - the “customer” doesn’t have access to its files.
March 14th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
I am unable to see the truecrypt volume in windows explorer. Although it opens through truecrypt’s tray icon??
February 12th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Hello,
Thanks in advance for your help. I have just downloaded the latest version of TC after installing this in my laptop(vista). I tried to created a volume container on my new USB drive before doing this I plugged the drive in my port and on my computer it came up as the F drive when I came to the end of procedure step# 13 from TC tutorial of selecting the drive letter the F drive was not listed it started with the letter G I then put a 2nd usb drive in and the letter G disappeared and the list started with H…What did I do wrong please help