I share a computer with my roommates and I think one of them is untrustworthy. Is there a way I can protect my information and data on the hard drive. And secure it with a password? If I can do this without the other people finding out. Any ideas?
You can set a hard drive password from system BIOS. Reboot your computer and open system BIOS and on hard drive choose security options. You can set password there. However, this kind of encryption is not highly secured. You can also find many softwares on internet that enables you to lock and hide your hard drive.
Setting a password in the BIOS like what the first post suggests has two effects: one, the password can be enabled for the BIOS alone so no one else can access and change BIOS settings except you, and two, the password can be enabled for booting which will prompt every user to enter the password to use the computer.
This prevents any household member from using the computer if he or she doesn’t know the password. If you want to protect your personal files from unauthorized access, protect your account with a password then create a new public account that anyone can use. This means there will be two user accounts on the computer: your user account and a public account.
To protect your account with a password, click “Start”, “Control Panel” then “User Accounts”. If you don’t see this, set view to “Small icons”. On the next screen, click “Create a password” then enter your desired password on the next screen. In the “Type a password hint” text field, enter a hint or a clue that will remind you what your password is.
When you are finished, click “Create password” to apply the new password. Now, to create a new account that others can use, click “Manage another account” then select “Create a new account”. On the next screen, enter the name of the new account then make sure “Standard user” is selected and then click “Create Account” to create the new account.
After this, restart the computer then log in to the new account you created to prepare it for use. This may take a while to complete so just wait. When it is finished, log off then log in back to your user account. And that’s it. Other users can now use the new account you created and your user account is all yours.
