encrypted folders ??

[Andy100]

Is there any freeware to encrypt a folder (to 448 blowfish if poss) with a
password so that if i click on the folder it will prompt me for a password
and only open if the password is correct.

I had all my personal details, bank statements, company word docs etc in a
folder using Paragon Encryption disk, and the other day the encrypted volume
refused to open with errors, i have tried everything and have now lost all
the data. I don't want to make the same mistake again.

I just wanted a way of protecting such things (in an easy-to-use program),
so that the data is secure. I have tried quite a few programs and all have
been messy to say the least.

I am using WinXP Pro, Athlon 1800GHz, 620 RAM.


Cheers
Andy

 

[Florent]

Is there any freeware to encrypt a folder (to 448 blowfish if poss) with a
password so that if i click on the folder it will prompt me for a password
and only open if the password is correct.

I had all my personal details, bank statements, company word docs etc in a
folder using Paragon Encryption disk, and the other day the encrypted volume
refused to open with errors, i have tried everything and have now lost all
the data. I don't want to make the same mistake again.

I just wanted a way of protecting such things (in an easy-to-use program),
so that the data is secure. I have tried quite a few programs and all have
been messy to say the least.

Did you try AxCrypt?
http://axcrypt.sf.net/

It does not encrypt folders, it encrypts just their content.
It decrypts data "on the fly" when you dble click any file.
You can save (or not) password during session.

I use it for the same things: bank statement, personal notes,
addresses, etc ...
I find it very useful.

--
Florent

--
Florent

Un de mes sites favoris :
One of my favorite web sites:
MesNews - http://www.mesnews.net

 

[Paul Urquhart]

Is there any freeware to encrypt a folder (to 448 blowfish if poss) with a
password so that if i click on the folder it will prompt me for a password
and only open if the password is correct.

I had all my personal details, bank statements, company word docs etc in a
folder using Paragon Encryption disk, and the other day the encrypted volume
refused to open with errors, i have tried everything and have now lost all
the data. I don't want to make the same mistake again.

I just wanted a way of protecting such things (in an easy-to-use program),
so that the data is secure. I have tried quite a few programs and all have
been messy to say the least.

I am using WinXP Pro, Athlon 1800GHz, 620 RAM.


Cheers
Andy

I use AxCrypt: AxCrypt File Encryption Software - Free Personal Privacy
and Security for Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2K/XP with AES-128 File Encryption,
Compression and transparent Decrypt and Open in the original
application. http://axcrypt.sourceforge.net/

 

[REM]

"Andy100" <[email protected]> wrote:

Is there any freeware to encrypt a folder (to 448 blowfish if poss) with a
password so that if i click on the folder it will prompt me for a password
and only open if the password is correct.

I had all my personal details, bank statements, company word docs etc in a
folder using Paragon Encryption disk, and the other day the encrypted volume
refused to open with errors, i have tried everything and have now lost all
the data. I don't want to make the same mistake again.

I just wanted a way of protecting such things (in an easy-to-use program),
so that the data is secure. I have tried quite a few programs and all have
been messy to say the least.

I am using WinXP Pro, Athlon 1800GHz, 620 RAM.

Another GNU goodie: TrueCrypt

http://www.truecrypt.tk/

"T r u e C r y p t

Free open-source on-the-fly encryption software for Windows
XP/2000/2003

Features:

It can create a virtual encrypted disk within a file and mount it as a
real disk.

It can encrypt an entire hard disk partition or a device, such as USB
memory stick, floppy disk, etc.

It is the only free open-source OTFE software for Windows XP that
provides plausible deniability.

Encryption algorithms: AES (256-bit key), Blowfish (448-bit key),
CAST5 (128-bit key), Triple DES

Based on Encryption for the Masses (E4M) 2.02a"

 

[Andy100]

Cheers folks, i tried both those programs and they're exactly what i needed.
TrueCrypt seems to be good for lots of files, but for the amount i have
(less than 10mb) i'm going to use AxCrypt.

Cheers for the info.

Andy

 

[REM]

"Andy100" <[email protected]> wrote:

Is there any freeware to encrypt a folder (to 448 blowfish if poss) with a
password so that if i click on the folder it will prompt me for a password
and only open if the password is correct.

I had all my personal details, bank statements, company word docs etc in a
folder using Paragon Encryption disk, and the other day the encrypted volume
refused to open with errors, i have tried everything and have now lost all
the data. I don't want to make the same mistake again.

As to the problem with Paragon, no one wants to place valuable data in
a volumn that might not open. Do you know what went wrong?

Do you think there was a bug? Or, did you uninstall and re-install the
program? How about scandisk looking for bad sectors?

An occasional burn to CD can help protect the encrypted data
structure. I place copies of the encryption program on the CD
also, to make sureI have several copies of both components.

 

[Andy100]

Well i tried to open it a few days ago, the system just hung. I re-booted,
same again. I thought it was maybe due to my USB HD taking up position H:\
in 'my computer' (the encrypted disk used to also be called H:\), so i
opened up the encrypted disk as another letter (T:\ in this case), still no
luck. I switched off the USB HD, still no luck.

I did scandisk, defrag, system restore, still no luck. By this time i
realised i had lost the data (although there wasn't anything of great
importance there, just an annoyance !).

I have put on TrueCrypt, and that seems quicker and just 'feels' more
reliable to WinXP. Only time will tell i guess, although i understand you
have used it for a while with no problems.

Anyway, thanks for pointing me to this software, hopefully it will be ok
this time.

By the way, how did you get it to backup to CDR encrypted ??, what files do
i have to put on the CDRW with the backup files and how did you go about it.
If it's a long winded process then don't bother explaining cos i'd probably
just get confused

Cheers for the help anyway.

Andy

 

[REM]

"Andy100" <[email protected]> wrote:

Well i tried to open it a few days ago, the system just hung. I re-booted,
same again. I thought it was maybe due to my USB HD taking up position H:\
in 'my computer' (the encrypted disk used to also be called H:\), so i
opened up the encrypted disk as another letter (T:\ in this case), still no
luck. I switched off the USB HD, still no luck.

I did scandisk, defrag, system restore, still no luck. By this time i
realised i had lost the data (although there wasn't anything of great
importance there, just an annoyance !).

Hmmm, that seems to rule out the more likely causes. Do you think a
worm/virus might have written to the encrypted files? I dunno. That's
just not supposed to happen. The thorough scandisk test each disk
sector to make sure it's good. It takes a long time to run on large
disks or partitions though.

By the way, how did you get it to backup to CDR encrypted ??, what files do
i have to put on the CDRW with the backup files and how did you go about it.
If it's a long winded process then don't bother explaining cos i'd probably
just get confused

When using PGPDisk, or TrueCrypt, you can make a virtual drive. You
tell it how much space and it grabs the space, formats, and encrypts
within it. This is a single file. The extension is "work.pgd" for my
PGP Disk personal stuff.

It's simply a matter of copying that one file to CD to back everything
up. You can open the file on the CD, or copy to hard disk if you need
to write or restore as the backup.

Given the intensive hashing used in encryption, it doesn't take much
to muss up a file on a hard disk. Bad sectors, viral writings, etc.
can change the file so it's not the legitimate file that only opens
with the one legitimate key any longer. It's random gibberish if the
entire file cannot be read as it was written, for whatever reason. As
you know, hard disks develop bad sectors with age. If the file happens
to straddle one it will be corrupted, unless scandisk can recover the
data and write it to a different location.

You can probably use a multi-session CD going and just copy the file
once a month into a subdir that denotes the date and feel pretty
comfortable. wo CD's are twice as good, depending on how important the
information is. Leave one somewhere else.

I haven't tried Axcrypt, so I don't know exactly how it works. Maybe
someone else can offer some backup advise on this program's file(s).

 

[Andy100]

Thanks REM for the good info there, yeah AxCrypt seems to work, but it
encrypts each individual file, so if there are a lot of files it looks
slightly messy, but it does the job nevertheless. TrueCrypt seems to be
better for me as it creates a kind of 'vault' to throw things in, then lock
it up.

Cheers
Andy

 

[Florent]

Thanks REM for the good info there, yeah AxCrypt seems to work, but it
encrypts each individual file, so if there are a lot of files it looks
slightly messy, but it does the job nevertheless. TrueCrypt seems to be
better for me as it creates a kind of 'vault' to throw things in, then lock
it up.

With AxCrypt, you can select many files, right-click and choose
"encrypt".
You can even encrypt the whole folder content (right-click folder).

Regards,

--
Florent

Un de mes sites favoris :
One of my favorite web sites:
PricelessWare - http://www.pricelessware.org

 

[WebWalker]

I am using WinXP Pro, Athlon 1800GHz, 620 RAM.

What's wrong with the WinXP Pro build-in encrytion function.

 

[Andy100]

Ah right, i'll have a go doing that. To be honest, i didn't really give
AxCrypt much of a go, so it was probably a bit unfair for me to say that it
only encrypts individual files. I'll definitely have a go doing that though.

Cheers
Andy

 

[Andy100]

Didn't realise there was one !. How do i use that ?

Cheers
Andy

 

[Ron May]

Didn't realise there was one !. How do i use that ?

Cheers
Andy

Here's a link explaining how to do it:

http://www.surasoft.com/articles/xpefs.php

HOWEVER, unless you logoff everytime you step away from your computer,
and no one else knows your logon, it's totally useless.

Ron M.

 

[Andy100]

Worked great, but last night everytime i dismounted a volume it caused my PC
to crash and restart itself. This happens everytime i dismount now. So the
program has gone from being brilliant to being rubbish, any ideas why this
might be happening ??

Cheers
Andy

 

[REM]

"Andy100" <[email protected]> wrote:

Worked great, but last night everytime i dismounted a volume it caused my PC
to crash and restart itself. This happens everytime i dismount now. So the
program has gone from being brilliant to being rubbish, any ideas why this
might be happening ??

I see a mention of file lock problems with anti-virus software, Norton
specifically is mentioned.

Here is one suggestion offered in the forum, aside from disabling
Norton real time scanning (if you're using it):

"problem: operating system restarts after attempt to dismount virtual
encrypted drive (everything simply disappears after pressing
"Dismount" button). There no messages (under XP and 2000) or message
stating something about invalid operation in 2003 Server.

Is there any cure for this?"


"I am not sure, if it works for everyone, but I solved (found a
work-around)the problem with Norton Antivirus real-time scanning and
following blue screen. And, it solved a problem with unpossible
dismounting because of locked files too.

I wrote this script for dismount (bat file):

chkdsk [drive, e.g. h:] /F /X
truecrypt /d /q

And it works."

 

[Andy100]

Cheers REM i'll give it a go. Is it as simple as putting that text into
notepad, then changing the extension from .txt to .bat ?

Cheers
Andy

"Andy100" <[email protected]> wrote:

Worked great, but last night everytime i dismounted a volume it caused my PC
to crash and restart itself. This happens everytime i dismount now. So the
program has gone from being brilliant to being rubbish, any ideas why this
might be happening ??

I see a mention of file lock problems with anti-virus software, Norton
specifically is mentioned.

Here is one suggestion offered in the forum, aside from disabling
Norton real time scanning (if you're using it):

"problem: operating system restarts after attempt to dismount virtual
encrypted drive (everything simply disappears after pressing
"Dismount" button). There no messages (under XP and 2000) or message
stating something about invalid operation in 2003 Server.

Is there any cure for this?"


"I am not sure, if it works for everyone, but I solved (found a
work-around)the problem with Norton Antivirus real-time scanning and
following blue screen. And, it solved a problem with unpossible
dismounting because of locked files too.

I wrote this script for dismount (bat file):

chkdsk [drive, e.g. h:] /F /X
truecrypt /d /q

And it works."

 

[Andy100]

The batch file executes as if it worked, but the volume is still mounted, so
it doesn't work !!!

Boooo, what a brilliant program, but flawed with a serious bug !!!!


Cheers
Andy

Cheers REM i'll give it a go. Is it as simple as putting that text into
notepad, then changing the extension from .txt to .bat ?

Cheers
Andy


my

PC

to crash and restart itself. This happens everytime i dismount now. So the
program has gone from being brilliant to being rubbish, any ideas why this
might be happening ??

I see a mention of file lock problems with anti-virus software, Norton
specifically is mentioned.

Here is one suggestion offered in the forum, aside from disabling
Norton real time scanning (if you're using it):

"problem: operating system restarts after attempt to dismount virtual
encrypted drive (everything simply disappears after pressing
"Dismount" button). There no messages (under XP and 2000) or message
stating something about invalid operation in 2003 Server.

Is there any cure for this?"


"I am not sure, if it works for everyone, but I solved (found a
work-around)the problem with Norton Antivirus real-time scanning and
following blue screen. And, it solved a problem with unpossible
dismounting because of locked files too.

I wrote this script for dismount (bat file):

chkdsk [drive, e.g. h:] /F /X
truecrypt /d /q

And it works."

 

[Andy100]

Just thought i'd let you know about this bug in TrueCrypt 2.1a, i tracked it
down to ZoneAlarm Pro's AntiVirus. When i temporarily switch it off,
everything is fine when i dismount.

Cheers
Andy

The batch file executes as if it worked, but the volume is still mounted, so
it doesn't work !!!

Boooo, what a brilliant program, but flawed with a serious bug !!!!


Cheers
Andy

Cheers REM i'll give it a go. Is it as simple as putting that text into
notepad, then changing the extension from .txt to .bat ?

Cheers
Andy

caused

my

PC
to crash and restart itself. This happens everytime i dismount now.

So
the

program has gone from being brilliant to being rubbish, any ideas why this
might be happening ??


I see a mention of file lock problems with anti-virus software, Norton
specifically is mentioned.

Here is one suggestion offered in the forum, aside from disabling
Norton real time scanning (if you're using it):

"problem: operating system restarts after attempt to dismount virtual
encrypted drive (everything simply disappears after pressing
"Dismount" button). There no messages (under XP and 2000) or message
stating something about invalid operation in 2003 Server.

Is there any cure for this?"


"I am not sure, if it works for everyone, but I solved (found a
work-around)the problem with Norton Antivirus real-time scanning and
following blue screen. And, it solved a problem with unpossible
dismounting because of locked files too.

I wrote this script for dismount (bat file):

chkdsk [drive, e.g. h:] /F /X
truecrypt /d /q

And it works."