Protect Your PC With a Hard-Drive Password

Protect Your PC With a Hard-Drive Password

We all use the User-account Login password on our PC, for security reasons. However, just the user-account password is useless if your PC is lost or stolen. Then the thief could just install your hard drive in another PC, instead of trying to boot it up under your name, and read all your important data in the Hard-drive.

So, to block access, why not add a password to the hard disk and make your data moresecure.

This process is simpler than encrypting the hard disk, though it can’t match encryption’s level of security. But still it is useful.

You can think of this action as adding another strong lock.

To do this, you need to enter into the BIOS of your PC. As soon as you turn on the PC, the first screen prompts a message that says “To enter the Setup, press key”. And it reads, which key to press. At that moment press the key to enter your PC’s BIOS (often it’s Esc or a function key). Your BIOS menus and names will vary depending on the Motherboard in your PC, but the process will be similar. Here perform the following steps:

• On the Phoenix Technologies BIOS found on many PCs, use the arrow keys tonavigate to the Security tab.
• Press down to highlight HDD Password, and press Enter.
• Type in the password, being sure to remember it or store it somewhere – if you lose the password, recovering the data could cost a lot of money.
• Follow the on-screen commands to exit and save your changes.

Now whenever you start the PC, you’ll see a prompt to enter the HDD Password first. If youwant to remove the password later, return to the BIOS. Revisit the HDD Password setting, enter the current password, and leave the new-password field blank.

Now, even if someone steals your PC, at least your data will not be stolen.