Vault setup help
This page is for anyone who has a Vault USB and needs it to work. Plain instructions, in the order people usually need them.
1. I do not see the USB drive
Plug the USB in. The drive is named PRIVATEAI. That is the word to look for.
On a Mac
It should appear on your desktop, or in the left-hand column of a Finder window. Many Macs have been set not to show USB disks. That is a setting on the computer, not a fault with the USB.
To turn it back on:
- Finder menu, then Settings, then Sidebar. Tick External disks.
- For the desktop icon: Finder menu, then Settings, then General. Tick External disks there as well.
The instruction that always works, whatever is ticked: open Finder, hold Shift and Command, and press C. Every disk on the computer is listed there.
On a Windows PC
Press the Windows key and E together, then click This PC on the left. The drive is listed there.
On many work and school PCs, AutoPlay is turned off and no window opens by itself when you plug the USB in. The drive is still there under This PC.
The instruction that always works: Windows key and E, then This PC. Look for the drive named PRIVATEAI.
Still nothing
Try the other USB socket and give it ten seconds. If the drive never appears on either socket, it is not a settings problem. Use the help form at the bottom of this page.
2. How to start
On a Mac: open the PRIVATEAI drive, then double-click Start on this Mac.
On a Windows PC: open the PRIVATEAI drive, then double-click Start on Windows.
What happens next: a small black window opens with the name Private AI Terminal, and then your browser opens a page. The first time you run it, that page has a short numbered list and a Continue button. Click Continue and you arrive at Home.
On Windows you may see a blue box saying Windows protected your PC. Click More info, then Run anyway. The program is not signed yet, so Windows does not recognise it.
The first load can take a minute or two. That is the AI being read off the USB.
3. Your PIN and your twelve words
The first time you set up encryption, you choose a PIN and the program shows you twelve words.
Write the twelve words down on paper and keep them somewhere safe.
The words are the only way back if you forget your PIN. Nobody can recover them for you, and that includes us. If you lose both the PIN and the words, what is in the vault cannot be opened again by anyone.
Your PIN stays on the device. Anyone who has both your PIN and the USB has what is on it. Either one on its own is not enough.
4. Close before you unplug
Three steps, in this order:
- Press Close on the Home page.
- Eject the drive. On a Mac, Control-click it and choose Eject. On Windows, use the eject icon in the taskbar.
- Unplug it.
Close writes your work back into the vault and clears the working copies it made. Closing the browser tab is not the same thing as pressing Close.
If you pull the USB out while a document is open, the last minute of unsaved work can be lost. A readable copy of whatever you had open can also stay in that computer’s memory until the computer restarts.
5. What this computer may keep
Using the USB leaves some traces on the computer you plug it into. The honest list:
- Permission boxes say Terminal, not Private AI Terminal. The launcher is not a signed application yet. It looks less trustworthy than it is.
- Word and Excel keep their own recent-files lists. A file name can appear there after you have finished.
- macOS keeps its own record that the apps were started.
- Permission you grant while you work stays granted after the session ends.
- Brave leaves one settings file on the computer. It records that Brave ran, not what you looked at.
And the one that matters most:
Do not use this on a computer you believe may have spyware on it.
A computer that someone else controls, or that already has spyware on it, can see your screen and your keystrokes while you work. A USB device cannot prevent that.
One more thing about deleting. When this device deletes a file, the memory chips can keep a recoverable copy for a while. That is how USB flash memory works, not a choice we made. It is the reason the things that matter are encrypted rather than only deleted.
6. Which computers it works on
The honest state today.
| Computer | State today |
|---|---|
| Mac with Apple silicon | This is where the device has been tested. |
| Mac with an Intel processor | Not tested. |
| Windows PC | The Windows program is built, and the steps above are what it does. It has not yet been tested on a real Windows PC. |
| Starting a computer from the USB instead of using that computer’s own system | Not built. |
If you are using Windows and something does not behave the way this page describes, please tell us. At this stage that is genuinely useful.
7. Getting help
Tell us what happened and what you saw on screen. Include the computer you used and, if there was an error message, the words it showed.