TRUCRYPT HELP NEWBIE

Hi and thanks for your time,

I had some files that I wanted to be encrypted, but instead I some how ran Trucrypt and had each of the files individually encrypted. I had placed them on a portable hard drive and have tried to open them up while connected to a new machine. I get no options for passwords when I right click. I am really stuck, please if there is anyone that can help, i thank you.

 

That's now how TrueCrypt works. It does not encrypt files one at a time. Are you sure you're using TrueCrypt?

 

Based on your stated intentions you would be much better served by AxCrypt, which is designed to encrypt individual files one at a time. I suggest you check it out.

As per your current situation, I hope this isn't what happened to you, but if you attempted to use TrueCrypt to directly encrypt individual files then there is a very real chance that you overwrote your original files and replaced them with TrueCrypt file containers. Did you use the names of your existing files when you created and named the container files? (I hope your answer is No, but if it's Yes then I hope you have backups.)

I suggest you follow the TrueCrypt tutorial and practice making some container files before getting involved with real data. As you will soon realize, TrueCrypt was never designed to directly encrypt individual files. It works more like this: First you create an encrypted volume (which at this point is completely empty of files), then you supply the password and mount the volume, then you move or copy any number of files into the volume, then you dismount the volume to make all of the files that it contains inaccessible to anyone who doesn't have the password. When you mount the volume you assign it to a specific drive letter, which you can access by going to that drive letter in Windows Explorer.

When first starting out with TrueCrypt you should be making container files. Each file contains an encrypted volume which can be mounted (and thus accessed) when you supply the password. Later on when you become more competent you can encrypt entire partitions, entire hard drives or even entire operating systems.

As per right-clicking: If the container file you want to mount has a .tc extension then you can just double-click on the file. When the TrueCrypt interface appears, merely select the drive letter that you want to mount the volume to, choose Mount, and supply the password. If you didn't use .tc extensions in your filenames then merely open TrueCrypt first, then select the desired file and mount it in a similar fashion.

Good luck, and don't forget to read the tutorial.

 

This is what the files look like after they were encrypted, "30B5FBB76.~enc" which a much longer numbering sequence, but all the same. I am pretty sure it was TruCrypt, but if I am wrong then is there any other software which I can use to get to my files? I was thinking the error happened because I used a new comp without the TruCrypt program installed and have the files saved on a removable hard drive. Thanks for all your help..

 

You didn't use TrueCrypt. Don't know what you did use.

You'll have to find out what program encrypted them to recover them.