Encrypting Data in XP Pro

Does anything bad happen if you encrypt data? If not, can I jstu encrypt drive C, or do I have to go by the folders? Also, what does formatting do? Does it do anything bad? Could someone explain what it does and how it helps? Thanks for the help!

EDIT: And could someone help me out on making partitions through windows? In the help section of disk management it says clcik an unallocated part of the basic drive, but where is that?

formatting erases everything from you hard drive just to let you know

If you encrypt something as a normal user, only that user can decrypt it. Probably a bad idea to encrypt your windows directory, as the 'system' users won't have access to their needed files in there. There is also a significant performance hit with encrypted files (esp. system files), because it needs to decrypt them before it can use them, and encrypt them before writing them.

If you encrypt stuff, make sure to backup your certificates so you can decrypt if your OS goes south.

Also-- encrypting makes no difference if you accidentally leave yourself logged in, or if someone hacks your system by some means, they will still have full access to your files, if they can manage to log on as you.

To make partitions in windows, you need to have unpartitioned space (i.e. a harddrive that is not partitioned/formatted.) You cant partition your C: drive into smaller partitions using the windows disk manager software. You would need 3rd party software, like patition magic.

su root said:

If you encrypt something as a normal user, only that user can decrypt it. Probably a bad idea to encrypt your windows directory, as the 'system' users won't have access to their needed files in there. There is also a significant performance hit with encrypted files (esp. system files), because it needs to decrypt them before it can use them, and encrypt them before writing them.

If you encrypt stuff, make sure to backup your certificates so you can decrypt if your OS goes south.

Also-- encrypting makes no difference if you accidentally leave yourself logged in, or if someone hacks your system by some means, they will still have full access to your files, if they can manage to log on as you.

To make partitions in windows, you need to have unpartitioned space (i.e. a harddrive that is not partitioned/formatted.) You cant partition your C: drive into smaller partitions using the windows disk manager software. You would need 3rd party software, like patition magic.

Click to expand...

Ohh, Ok, thanks! I wont encrypt, I thought it might make my system safer or something, but if it doesnt, why do it? And, if I make windows a partition, can I jsut format that one partition, so I keep all my files?

The idea is, in a business environment, where you keep your documents on the server, you can secure the documents so that if something crazy happened, and other people got access to your files on the server, they wouldn't be able to read the encrypted ones.

On a home computer though, there is probably only one user account. That means that in order to log in, you MUST be logged in as yourself, and thus, can decrypt/read the files. Any hackers would have to break into your account (b/c it's the only one), and thus would also have access, if they could get in somehow (theoretical). It may offer security if you don't want your pesky siblings reading some of your stuff from their account. (but NTFS permissions usually take care of this as-is).

And I'll tell you right now: unless you are working with a new harddrive that has no data on it, DON'T USE window's disk manager to partition/format your harddrives. YOU WILL LOSE DATA. Don't let the disk manager touch any drive you have data on.

su root said:

The idea is, in a business environment, where you keep your documents on the server, you can secure the documents so that if something crazy happened, and other people got access to your files on the server, they wouldn't be able to read the encrypted ones.

On a home computer though, there is probably only one user account. That means that in order to log in, you MUST be logged in as yourself, and thus, can decrypt/read the files. Any hackers would have to break into your account (b/c it's the only one), and thus would also have access, if they could get in somehow (theoretical). It may offer security if you don't want your pesky siblings reading some of your stuff from their account. (but NTFS permissions usually take care of this as-is).

And I'll tell you right now: unless you are working with a new harddrive that has no data on it, DON'T USE window's disk manager to partition/format your harddrives. YOU WILL LOSE DATA. Don't let the disk manager touch any drive you have data on.

Click to expand...

All righty, thanks for all the help! I REALLY appreciate it, I am gonna get PM 8 and use that! Btw, what in your opinion is the best setup for partitions?

Here is how I run my system:

C: (IDE|0:0/partition1) System Drive, Installed Programs, Page file (70% of my swap space is here) - 10Gigs (3 free right now)
D: (IDE|0:0/partition2) Data Drive, For any downloads, and other files. I like to keep my profile, email, and documents on this drive aswell. Holds the other 30% of my page file. - 50Gigs
E: (ATA/100|0:0) More Data, 30Gigs.


The 'ideal' setup, IMO:
C: (ATA133|0:0) 10Gigs - System / Installed Programs
D: (IDE|0:0) Other data
E: (ATA133|1:0) A small, rarely-used drive that's fast (7200rpm, ata100, or better) - used for a Swap file, and other, rarely used data.

su root said:

Here is how I run my system:

C: (IDE|0:0/partition1) System Drive, Installed Programs, Page file (70% of my swap space is here) - 10Gigs (3 free right now)
D: (IDE|0:0/partition2) Data Drive, For any downloads, and other files. I like to keep my profile, email, and documents on this drive aswell. Holds the other 30% of my page file. - 50Gigs
E: (ATA/100|0:0) More Data, 30Gigs.


The 'ideal' setup, IMO:
C: (ATA133|0:0) 10Gigs - System / Installed Programs
D: (IDE|0:0) Other data
E: (ATA133|1:0) A small, rarely-used drive that's fast (7200rpm, ata100, or better) - used for a Swap file, and other, rarely used data.

Click to expand...

Ok, I made a couple new partitions. They are F and G, because my cdrw and dvd drives take up the d and e names, but no matter. The problem is, I want it setup like this:

C:Windows Xp
F: Swap file
G: Programs, settings, everything else.

But for the programs one, I try to move Program Files into it, but the very first thing, Zonealarm, wont move. What do I do? Also, how do I make the drive my swap files drive? Where is the swap file, how do I get it to only use that drive?

It's probably a bad idea to go and try to manually move a program around. It would be best to uninstall & reinstall it. Access is denied because you are probably running the program right now.

The swap file can be accessed by right clicking on my computer, going to properties. Then goto advanced. In 2k, it's in performance options, then virtual memory/change button. I know it's a little different in XP, but it's in there somewhere.
Then select a drive, set the min&max sizes you want, and click set.

Is your swap drive just a partition on the same physical drive? If so, then there's really no need to seperate it. The idea of seperating it is to put it on another physical drive, on another bus. That way, if one drive or one bus becomes busy, windows can cache anything at any time on a dedicated harddrive on a dedicated bus. But since it's the same physical drive, then it won't matter what partition it's on, it will have to deal with a busy drive and a busy bus.

So, you think theres no point having the swap file there? Should I just rename that drive and use it for My Documents or something?

If it's the same physical drive, you'll see no real performance increase by putting it on it's own partition. One swap file per physical drive (excluding removeable media/harddrives)

su root said:

If it's the same physical drive, you'll see no real performance increase by putting it on it's own partition. One swap file per physical drive (excluding removeable media/harddrives)

Click to expand...

All right. So, C for Windows XP, F for Documents and Settings, and G for programs/ Downloads/ Everything else? Sound good?

Zacmaniac said:

All right. So, C for Windows XP, F for Documents and Settings, and G for programs/ Downloads/ Everything else? Sound good?

Click to expand...

Sure. Just be careful that your Documents and Settings may outgrow your harddrive. (Esp. If you have a younger sibling that likes to keep 30gigs on his desktop.)

Also on that note: saving anything on your desktop will require alot of resources to move it off your desktop (as it will need to read it off the partition, and write it onto another one)