A very simple thing that springs to mind is that .zip files can be encrypted. A zip file is a file that is a compressed (and sometimes encrypted) version of other file/s. Try extracting the zip file in the file directory. If it asks you for a password, that might be the encryption he is talking about. Bit easier than going all forensic on his a-se. If it does, you can either guess the password, or you can google for software to crack zip passwords.
Sure, but before attempting to decrypt a file, you have to find it, that is the actual first step, as the thread title states "Finding hidden encrypted files"…
jaclaz
Here is the worst part - there is only few ways to state that there are no hidden files on a media.
Here is the worst part - there is only few ways to state that there are no hidden files on a media.
Right, and here, specifically, there is not even a media 😯 (in the sense of specific hardware/filesystem/partition image, etc.) , since the OP talked about
He ended up giving me couple of folders (so I stopped going on his computer chance I got) and its somewhere inside in them. Some folders contain more folders and there are different kinds of files within them including text files, pictures, a ziped folder, and html files . There's not really *that* much to go through so if you have a "do this thing to every file" method I'll probably use it, regardless of how tedious it it.
jaclaz
Have you tried the attrib command from the command prompt? You can make a file hidden and system so explorer won't display it even if you have the folder options set to show hidden files
>attrib filename.txt +h +s