Have you ever wanted a program that can securely encrypt your files? Well a program happens to exist on the internet that will do just that and more. This software is open-source and doesn’t require much knowledge to be able to work it. I will give you a simple tutorial on how to create a TrueCrypt volume and you can start encrypting your files today.
You can download TrueCrypt at this link http://www.truecrypt.org/downloads.php and once you have it downloaded and installed you should see the TrueCrypt icon on the desktop. Open it up and you will see the main window.
The first thing you will want to do is create a TrueCrypt volume in order to store your files. Click on ‘Create Volume’ and a dialog will appear. Make sure ‘Create a standard TrueCrypt volume’ is selected and click Next. The program will ask where you want your file to be placed. Click ‘Select File’ and click on ‘Desktop’ on the side. Type in a name that you want the file to be and make sure you do NOT place an extension on the filename. The next screen should be left to default so just click Next again. It will then ask you how big you want to volume to hold. Make sure you choose a size that will be able to hold all the files you are encrypting. 512MB should be enough for most people. The next screen ask for a password. It is good to put a long password, but make sure you remember it, otherwise you will not have access to your encrypted files. When you click next select what file system you want and move the cursor around the screen for about a minute in order to generate a random key. The longer you move the cursor in the window, the better the random key will be. When you have finished, click on Format. It will tell you that the TrueCrypt volume is created. Click on Cancel to close the New Volume dialog.
The next thing you will want to do is mount the volume so that you can place your files in it. Click on ‘Select File’ and find your file. When you have that selected click any of the drive letters available in the list and click the ‘Mount’ button at the button of the program. It will ask for a password, type it in and click Ok. Your volume is now mounted. To access it, goto My Computer by click Start > MyComputer, or Computer for Vista users, and whichever drive letter you selected in the list will be the drive letter you have to find. It will have a harddrive icon. Once you’ve found it open it and you can now place your files in the volume.
Make sure that when you are done placing files your volume that you Dismount it so that no one can read the files you have just placed in the volume. You can do this by click ‘Dismount All’ on the main window, or clicking ‘Dismount’.