Leaderboard

You don't even have to enter an extra password if you want. All of us should encrypt the hard drives in case our computers and/or hard drives are stolen.

A necessity for any computer with data or information other than your own (and really, for all computers these days). It is a reasonable protection step which, if ignored, can be used against you if there is a breach. At least with the editions of Windows I use, it is "baked" in and seamless. The other encryption to be aware of is to encrypt your backups before they go to other media or the cloud. Do not rely on the backup service to encrypt for you. In other words, you handle the encryption first, using your own key, then upload or copy to storage.

I've changed my backup drive to a second drive because my C drive is smallish (SSD) and haven't had any problems. It is supposed to work in later versions (after 2013), but I haven't tried it. You should really encrypt all of your drives. That's what we do and it's almost invisible to us. Just an extra password when booting.

From a support perspective (if you ever want a reasonable chance at receiving support), let software install and use the folders the maker determines work best for their software. Makers have reasons for selecting the folders they do. When you elect to use something else, you are "on your own" in most cases. If you are looking for security with the encryption, with a current computer, running encryption on all drives is not a huge burden. If encryption is desired, encrypt all, since not doing so may miss something on the raw drive you were not aware of.

I tried it a few years ago. I don't recommend it. I had some problems. Since then, I have put ATX on the C drive and let the program put everything in its own files & folders on the C drive as the program wants to. I would install ATX on the C drive and let the ATX program put everything by default to the C drive as well. The program is looking and putting things where they think they should be. I do not want to interfere with that. I do put my client info and pdf copies of the returns and worksheets on my 2nd internal hard drive (E drive in my case). I also have both C & E drives encrypted.

Thanks everyone for your assistance and guidance. I was able to restore and recover the data. Luckily, I found the CD to install on the new host and migrated the database. My CPA is very happy