Backing Up Cryptainer Vaults

IMPORTANT: We strongly recommend routine backups of all important data including Cryptainer files. Hard drives, or Computers do crash very regularly for a variety of reasons.

Regular backups are the only answer, as in the case of all computer data.

The Cryptainer Drive is a file. This file behaves like a regular Windows drive only after mounting it through the program interface. Once you exit Cryptainer, the volume is like any other file or folder on the Windows system. You can backup the volume like you backup any of the file.

The default location is ...\WINNT\system32\cxl1708 under Win2k and ....\Windows\system32\cxl1708 under Win XP and Win 98. You can copy or backup this drive (file) anywhere on any drive.

Procedure

To to see how this works, we recommend that you create an additional volume and follow the step listed below

1.        Please go to the "Tools" option and select the "Additional Cryptainer Volumes" tab.

2.        Click on "New Volume" button .

3.        You will see a window "Specify Volume Details'.

4.        Click on the "Browse" button.  You can browse through your computer and create a volume anywhere you want.  Please enter a filename for the Cryptainer volume.

HINT: We recommend that you create a volume on a location other than the default location. To illustrate, create a volume called "my data" on the desktop.

5.        Thereafter, please click directly on the button labelled "Proceed to create volume". This will create the Cryptainer vault within which all your data is stored

6.        Copy any test data on to the drive.

7.        Once you have copied some test data, please unload the vault by using the " unload" button.

8.        You need to back up file named "my data" on the desktop. This is backed up like any other Windows file. You can use any standard backup method or software to copy/backup this up on to another location or media.

Please note that this file contains your data in an encrypted form.

9.        To restore your encrypted backups, please use the "Additional volume" dialogue under the "Tools" menu.

10.        Click on the "Load" button to restore the backup.

Tip:

If the backup were taken on a CD media, please note that you would need to restore the vault on the hard drive. You would also need to uncheck the "Read Only" attribute. (Right-click on the vault, under "Properties").