This process will take a few minutes to an hour or more. Move them around until the bar is green, then click Format. Your mouse movements apparently add randomness to the keys the program selects. Move the mouse randomly around in the window while VeraCrypt randomizes the cryptography.

Decide whether you will have large files on this partition or not.

Enter and confirm your password, then click Next.

Confirm the volume size and click Next.

You can pretty much choose any of these and it will be fine unless the NSA is coming after your data.

Select the encryption method and hash algorithm you wish to use.

If you are protecting an empty drive, select “ Create encrypted volume and format it” and click Next.

Select “ Encrypt partition in place.” If you select the other option and there is data on your drive, the data will be overridden and lost.

Click Select Device and select your USB drive from the list of devices that appears, then click OK, then click Next.

Select “ Standard VeraCrypt volume” and click Next.

Click on Create Volume, select “ Encrypt a non-system partition/drive,” and click Next.Launch the VeraCrypt app by typing “ veracrypt” in the search box, selecting the app, and hitting return.Protecting a drive is quite a tedious process using VeraCrypt but it isn’t very complex. Some of the main features of Veracrypt include entire encryption of storage devices (such as USB), automatic and real-time encryption, hardware-accelerated encryption, and plausible deniability).

Lock usb drive with password