Securing your Disk

 There are two possibilities:

1. You have never had any sensitive information on your hard disk. In this case, read this section but you can certainly skip it.

2. Up until now, you have stored sensitive information on your hard disk. If so, then you MUST read this section.

 

If you have ever used this computer to access sensitive information, then all of the security and precautions in the world are totally useless and futile because all someone has to do is access what is left of that sensitive information. I cannot stress this enough.

 

You can have the most secure TrueCrypt volumes, use TOR, and be the safest most secure user in the world. If you have not made sure that *ALL* remnants of any sensitive information are UTTERLY REMOVED from your hard disk, then all of that effort is totally pointless. You MUST take these actions to safeguard your hard disk, or otherwise you might as well throw away this guide and follow none of the advice herein.

 

First, I understand that it is troublesome to have to re-format a computer, to back everything up, and reinstall everything. However, if you have ever had sensitive information on your machine, that is what you have to do. Take the following steps:

 

1. Obtain a removable harddrive or usb flash drive large enough to store anything you need to save.

2. Set up a truecrypt hidden volume on that harddrive big enough to hold all of that information.

3. Set up the truecrypt outer volume as in the previous section. Use the previous section as a guide if you need to.

4. Be s
5. Copy ALL data you need to back up/save into that hidden volume. ure you the hidden volume will have enough space to store all