I had an interesting problem while backing up some files to an external 
hard drive.

I'm a teacher, so I create a folder for each class and put all handouts, 
student work, etc., in these folders. Since I'm supposed to keep 
everything for a year, I move the folders to an external hard drive at 
the end of the semester. Doing this keeps them out of my hair until I 
can delete them altogether.

Anyway, I didn't get around to moving my folders until today. When I 
did, a couple of student papers were not moved. I got a dialog saying 
they couldn't be copied because my hard drive doesn't support 
encryption. I do remember opening and reading the files without any 
problem. In fact, when I can't open a file, I ask the student to 
resubmit it, and I delete the bad file right away.

So my questions are these:

* Why would the hard drive say files were encrypted when I can open them?

* Why would encryption matter to a hard drive? Presumably I might want 
to back up my top secret files as well.

Just curious.


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