Conversions

WinHex & X-Ways

Conversions

 

WinHex provides the "Convert" command of the Edit menu for easy conversions of different data formats and for encryption and decryption. The conversion can optionally be applied to all opened files instead of only the currently displayed one. The formats marked with an asterisk (*) can only be converted as a whole file, not as a block. The following formats are supported:

 

• ANSI ASCII, IBM ASCII (two different ASCII character sets)

• EBCDIC (an IBM mainframe character set)

• Lowercase/uppercase characters (ANSI ASCII)

• Binary* (raw data)

• Hex ASCII* (hexadecimal representation of raw data as ASCII text)

• Intel Hex* (=Extended Intellec; hex ASCII data in a special format, incl. checksums etc.)

• Motorola S* (=Extended Exorcisor; ditto)

• Base64*

• UUCode*

• Percentage URL Encode

• Quoted Printable

 

Please note:

• When converting Intel Hex or Motorola S data, the internal checksums of these formats are not checked.

• Depending on the file size, the smallest possible output subformat is chosen automatically. Intel Hex: 20-bit or 32-bit. Motorola S: S1, S2, or S3.

• When converting from binary to Intel Hex or Motorola S, only memory regions not filled with hexadecimal FFs are translated, to keep the resulting file compact.

 

The Convert command can also decompress any number of complete 16-cluster compression units compressed by the NTFS file system* and (with a forensic license) entire hiberfil.sys files that were copied off an image as well as individual xpress chunks from such files. Also, it allows to convert so-called Nandroid backup files of the NAND flash memory of Android devices to regular raw images.

 

Furthermore it can stretch packed 7-bit ASCII to readable 8-bit ASCII*, useful e.g. for SMS from mobile phones.

 

Encryption/Decryption

 

It is recommended to specify a combination of at least 8 characters as the encryption key. Do not use words of any language, it is better to choose a random combination of letters, punctuation marks, and digits. Note that encryption keys are case sensitive. Remember that you will be unable to retrieve the encrypted data without the appropriate key. The decryption key you enter is not verified before decrypting.

 

Encryption algorithm: 256-bit AES/Rijndael, in counter (CTR) mode. This encryption algorithm uses a 256-bit key that is digested with SHA-256 from the 512-bit concatenation of the SHA-256 of the key you specify and 256 bits of cryptographically sound random input (“salt”). The file is expanded by 48 bytes to accommodate the 256 bits of salt, and a randomized 128-bit initial counter.

WinHex allows you to encrypt not only an entire file, but also a block of data only. In that case you are warned, however, that no salt is used and no random initial counter is used, so you must not reuse your key to encrypt other data with the same encryption method. The size of the block is left unchanged.