Staff USB

Note: we strongly advise you only use USB storage devices as a backup of your original files, please make sure you have a copy of the data on your H-drive or S-drive before you encrypt it

Note: and also never pause the encryption process once it has started

If you decide to encrypt your USB storage device on a Windows 7 machine, please be aware:

• Windows 7 users will have full permissions (read and write)
• Windows Vista / XP users will have limited permissions (read only). If you use XP/Vista, read the 'I have Windows XP / Windows Vista / Mac OS at home' FAQ before encrypting
• The Mac operating system will not be able to access any device encrypted on Windows 7

To encrypt your device:

1. Insert your USB storage device into your Windows 7 machine

2. Step 2 depends on your location:

• If you are on-campus, when the USB is detected, you will see the following prompt:

• If you are off-campus, or were not prompted for encryption, then right click the device and choose 'Turn on BitLocker':

Note: you can only encrypt devices if you are using Windows 7 Enterprise or Ultimate (not Home Edition)

3. You will need to think of a secure password that follows the same rules as the new University password policy

4. Tick the box 'Use a password to unlock the drive', input that password twice, and click 'Next'

5. The next screen is for creating your recovery key which would be used if you forget your password in the future:

• If you are using a University PC, then you don’t need to save a recovery key, because one is created automatically for you on our server, therefore you can click 'Next'
• However, if you are using a personal copy of Windows 7 then you will have to click 'Save the recovery key to a file' which can be on any drive apart from the device you are encrypting, or you can 'Print the Recovery Key', then click 'Next'

6. The next screen asks  'Are you ready to encrypt this drive?'

Before you start the encryption, workout roughly how long it will take to complete.

Some USB sticks are faster than others, therefore encryption times will vary depending on size and write speed.

However you can estimate how long it will take to encrypt using these examples:

• A small 256 MB memory stick will typically take 5-10 mins
• A 16 GB memory stick will take between 1-2 hours (regardless of whether it’s empty or full)
• A large 1.3 TB USB hard drive may take up to 50 hours to encrypt

7. Only start the encryption process if you have enough time to let it finish completely.

Note: we strongly advise you only use USB storage devices as a backup of your original files, please make sure you have a copy of the data on your H-drive or S-drive before you encrypt it.

When you have read the text, and are ready to begin the device encryption click:

Note: it is strongly advised that you never pause the encryption process once it has started.

8. The progress bar will show you the percentage encrypted:

9. At the end of the encryption you will see the following:

Now every time you input your USB storage device into a Windows machine you will need to enter your password to access the drive.

When you insert an encrypted USB storage device into a Windows machine, you will be automatically prompted for the password:

If you input the password correctly you will then have access to the drive:

• Windows 7 users will have full permissions (read and write)
• Windows Vista/XP users will have limited permissions (read only)
• The Mac operating system will not be able to access any device encrypted on Windows 7

Note: if you tick 'Automatically unlock on this computer from now on' on both your work and home machine, then your account won’t be prompted for the password on those machines again. However you will always get a password prompted on new machines, or if a different user tries to access that device.