Hi Guys!

I was trying to encrypt my entire HD today, but I was unable to find any programs that would completley encrypt my entire hard drive. It appears I am able to encrypt a single folder, but not the entire thing! I don't want to reinstall on this computer. Is there anything else I can do?

Thanks in advance!

Nbiser

You should backup your data and reinstall. When you are asked how to partition your drive, don't just click next next etc. There will be an option like advanced or custom. Within that option, you will be able to encrypt your partition and set a password. Follow the rest of the install as normal. Write down the master password and use it each time you reboot. You will now have a crypto luks partition.

Why? Fedora 17 is pretty old and no longer receiving security updates. If you want to use a distro for an extended period of time then choose a distro which receives updates over the long term. RHEL 7 (and its counterpart CentOS 7) is about to be released. Or you can opt for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS which also was released recently.

You're better of sticking with a distro which is still maintained and then thinking about security and harddrive encryption.

On fedora 17 , you DO NOT

Fedora 17 is UNSUPPORTED and has NOT received any updates for the last year , and it NEVER will receive any updates
it is UNSUPPORTED

please stay current and install fedora 20
in about 2 months fedora 21 will be released

I was hoping to avoid a reinstall, but thanks for anyways!

Nbiser

Sorry, but I like 17 and don't plan on changing. I am good with computers, I know what sites not to go to, and I don't open unknown email attachments. Also, my laptop is not online all of the time. I made a choice to stay with 17 and I will stick to that choice.

then use a Long life distro
do you still use win 98 ? or xp ?

fedora is a VERY fast R and D distro
it changes drastically EVERY 6 months ( fedora 21 is taking extra time )

the NOW fixed SSL security hole is FIXED in fedora 20
but will NEVER!!!!!! get fixed in 17


17 is DEAD!!!! and unsupported
-- DO NOT USE --

Stable is not really an "R & D" distro. "Rawhide" is. Stable just has a fast release cycle as you mentioned.

Sure Red Hat donates to them and sometimes steers their development, ie using bleeding edge software. But that is not considered research and development, its just Bleeding Edge. Like Arch.

Using the newest software doesn't make it a 'testing' or 'r & d' distro.

No, I use Windows 7 and 8, but windows is differnet from linux in that it become really vulnerable when it is not updated.

Security holes are security holes no matter what the operating system. Don't fool yourself into naively thinking you're immune to a breach simply because you're using Linux alone. Although Linux might have a slightly better security model than Windows it was still designed by humans and it is impossible for humans to create perfection. Security is layers and one of those layers is keeping your operating system up to date with the latest security patches. You're flying by the seat of your pants by using an outdated Linux distribution.

Regarding the filesystem encryption LUKS is typically used for block level encryption on the filesystem. I also tend to keep files individually encrypted using gpg rather than filesystem encryption. Depends on what your goals are.

SAM