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Contents

Safe Drive for windows , File security.

   What is Safe Drive

   How to use Safe Drive

   Problems

   The Archive Directory


How to use Safe Drive

Safe drive is simple to use, once installed it's almost automatic. When windows starts you will be asked if you want to decrypt the contents of safe drive if you agree you it will be necessary to provide your password, if you provide the correct password the entire contents of safe drive will be decrypted. If the password is incorrect no action is taken.

When windows closes safe drive will automatically encrypt all files in the safe drive.

If you do not start safe drive on windows start up you may start it at a later time by clicking on the safe drive icon in the ncrypt program group and then providing your password. You may also manually close safedrive by clicking on the minimized safe drive icon and clicking on the close button. Using the drive created by safe drive, is very simple just treat it like any other drive, you may create subdirectories,delete and move files just as you would on an ordinary drive, Simple!

N.B. IMPORTANT IF WINDOWS CRASHES IT IS UNLIKELY THAT YOUR FILES WILL BE ENCRYPTED YOU SHOULD RESTART WINDOWS AND SAFEDRIVE THEN CLOSE BOTH IN THE NORMAL MANNER.


Problems

Can't get safedrive to work.

Safedrive requires that you have the dos subst command available in your dos directory, this is normally c:\dos for 6.22  or c:\windows\command for windows95.

The dos subst command in dos 6.22 is incompatible with win3.11 32bit disk access, to check for 32bit disk access , go to main group click on control panel icon the select 386enhanced option next click on the virtual memory button , you should then see details of the disk access type that is in use, To change select the change option and uncheck the 32bit disk access option. If your machine has a disk greater than 520mb it is highly unlikely that 32bit disk access will be available as windows 3.11 cannot deal with disks which use L.B.A. mode as most disks greater than 520mb use.

Other problems can be caused by the addition of drives using the same drive letter as safe drive.

If you are still stuck Drop us a line. Our address is in the ncrypt help file under purchase page.


The Archive Directroy
The Archive Directory

The Archive Directory is located in the safedrive disk. Files stored in the Archive Directory are

encrypted when they are first placed there. They are not decrypted when safedrive is run again.

The idea behind this is to improve performance, If you have files which you want to keep secure

,but are not currently working on then they should be stored in the archive directory. All subdirectories

in the archive directory are treated in the same manner, Also any other directories you create in

safedrive which have a directory called archive in their path will be treated in the same way.

To decrypt any of these files move them to any other path in safedrive which does not contain

a directory called archive in it's path and the files will be decrypted the next time safedrive is

started.


What is Safe Drive

Safe drive is a file encryption program, it uses the dos subst command to make a directory emulate a drive on your machine. Files that are stored in the safe drive are decrypted when windows starts and decrypted when windows shuts down.

What is Encryption?

When a file is encrypted it's meaning is changed, the values for each part of the file are altered so that they have little meaning and are of little use. A basic encryption could, for example, swap the letter a for the letter s and so on, making the sentence garbage although when decrypted the sentence is restored to it's original value, returning meaning and order.

Why use encryption?

The basic answer is to keep your files safe from prying eyes. Security on a P.C. is very basic and easily evaded leaving your files unprotected. encryption provides the protection that is lacking on most p.c.'s and operating systems.

Considering that your bios password can be removed in seconds once the pc's case is removed and that most operating systems can be bypassed by booting to a floppy, people can still get access to your files. One of the best protection measures is alteration of the File allocation table and password protecting it , this would prevent people from directly reading the drives content, although it could still be bypassed by scanning the actual surface of the disk, Very time consuming but still possible .

With encryption your files are highly protected and not easily read.

Please note this does not prevent people from moving or erasing your files, it prevents them from actually seeing what's in the file.