This is a novelty and provides no real security, but for a novelty that provides no real security it's pretty cool. Tested on Windows XP and 7.
1. Go to Start -> Run, type syskey and press Enter. This window will appear:
2. Click on Update to bring up this dialog:
3. Pick "Store Startup Key on Floppy Disk".
4. Press OK. The following message will pop up:
5. Click OK again.
6. Now insert a preferably empty, working floppy in your floppy disk drive, and click OK one more time. The drive's light will flash for a while, then this will appear:
After you click OK, syskey will close. You'll notice a 16-byte long file called StartKey.Key has been created in the floppy disk. The next time you reboot your PC (and every time onwards), Windows will ask for this "pass-disk" to be inserted before proceeding, and will refuse to continue if it isn't.
If you don't have a floppy drive or don't want to use it, you can use any other means of portable storage, but it must have drive letter A and must be available very early on Windows startup (before the login screen).
Tips:
- Keep a backup of StartKey.Key somewhere, because if you lose that file, you'll have to reinstall Windows.
- Take good care of whatever storage media you keep the key file in.
- You can also use a(nother) password instead of a pass-disk. In step 3, pick Password Startup instead, type and confirm it, then press OK. You'll be asked to insert the pass disk before proceeding if you were using it before.
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