Truecrypt Question

I want to encrypt my entire hard drive.

My question is...do I need to use TC and encrypt on an empty hard drive? Or can I use TC on a hard drive that already contains my Windows?

Or will I need to reinstall Windows from scratch and start all over again, after TC has encrypted the hard drive?

 

No. The OS needs to be installed for TC to load its drivers.

Yes.

No. TC will ask you to create a rescue CD during the encryption process in case anything goes wrong. The entire process is well documented throughout. I've encrypted many systems with TC and never had any issues. Regarding your question in the other thread, I've never noticed any significant slowdowns with lesser hardware than your Pavilion has. Have fun!

 

That is good news, so I can encrypt my hard drive and keep my windows and not need to install windows from scratch.

Should I choose WHOLE HARD DRIVE, or should I just encrypt C: Partition? Is that possible?

I have C: and D: and D: contains my windows image that came with my Laptop. What should I do? Will it corrupt my D: Windows Rescue partition?

Is it hard to remove TC?

And how long does it take to encrypt the hard drive? Mine is 320GB, but Windows only uses around 30GB.

 

I don't think TC will let you encrypt the system partition and also encrypt another separate partition on that physical disk. I played around with this once and I don't remember the exact message that TC gave me. The systems that I have successfully encrypted with TC have been single partitions. On my boxes with multiple partitions on the system disk I use Jetico BCVE. I've never encountered any corruption issues with either program. However, my guess is that your Windows Rescue partition isn't going to be much help if your Windows install on C:\ gets hosed and you've encrypted D:\. I always reformat everything I buy, so I don't have much experience to back any of this up. The best thing to do is take an image of your laptop before you start; that way you can restore it if something goes wrong.

I don't know from experience, but I would guess it is a simple matter of decrypting the disk. I've done this with Jetico several times without any issues, but not yet with TC.

This will depend on your hardware and the algorithm you use, so it's hard to say. A rough guess would be around 1/2 hour or so on the 30GB partition. If you encrypt the entire disk your probably looking at something like 4-6 hours.

 

I recommend that you encrypt only the system partition (C), as this is the least problematic approach. If you want any other partitions encrypted then you can encrypt them separately. If desired it's easy to set things up so that you only have to enter your password once in order to mount all encrypted partitions.

There's no reason to encrypt partitions that don't contain any user data. If the contents of your Windows Rescue Partition is part of your computer's original configuration then there's no reason to mess with it. However, if you imaged your C drive to that partition after using your system for awhile (as some setups will allow you to do) then it might contain some user data. It's your call.

 

Does TC do a lot of wear and tear on the hard drive, cutting down the lifespan of the hard drive?

 

No more than without encryption AFAIK.