Windows 10: How safe is to encrypt an external hard driver containing a windows backup?

Heyo dears. I have an image of my Windows 10 PC on an external hard drive, though the drive is not encrypted and would like to encrypt it as it contains also on the side backup of documents of other computers. How safe is to encrypt an external hard drive containing a windows 10 image backup? Would I be able to use the image to restore the image if it's on an encrypted hard drive? I would probably use Veracrypt to encrypt it as I don't have Bitlocker.Thanks and happy new years :

:)

 

Using network hard drive for backup

It depends what sort of backup you want to do. If you're happy just backing up regular files, then there are a bazillion (really, that many!) different bits of freeware to do that. There is a good list here:

Download Back Up Tools for Windows - MajorGeeks

and pretty much all of them can do network backups. Some even have fancy options like encryption. Really, the most useful thing is just being able to schedule them and know they ran OK.

You may also want to make a system image backup too, and you'll find that software in the very same list.

I don't have Windows 8 as yet, so I'm afraid I can't suggest any for that platform. Personally, I use Clonezilla for image backups.

 

external drive and encryption?

This question is two-fold.

First I would like an external enclosure that is rugged and shock resistant (static electricity and the like, being winter and all) for a 3.5inch SATA drive.
Barring that, an external drive with the above. What would you guys recommend?

Also, I was wondering, is there a tool to encrypt the entire hard drive, but that does NOT ask to format said encrypted disk? I tried TrueCrypt, and last time I did, it asked me to format the drive because it was not recognized. I know there are alternatives, but I forgot their names. Price is of no concern if it is able to do so. any suggestions? Does Windows not show "drive must be formatted" on TrueCrypt drives anymore?

Best way would be if I plug in the drive, it asks for password automatically or something...

 

Encrypted files stopping backup to external drive

Hi T-Byrd,

You can easily view the encrypted files on your local hard disks by running a specific command in
Command Prompt.

1. Select the Start button.
2. Type Command Prompt and then hit Enter.
3. In the Command Prompt window, type the command below and then press
   Enter.
   • cipher /u /n /h
4. This cipher command will search your local disks for all encrypted files that belong to the current user and will list down its location.

If you're still having trouble with backing up your personal data, you can refer to
Andre Da Costa's forum article.
The article he created outlines the steps on how to manually backup and restore files in Windows 10.

Let us know if you need further assistance.