Two hours later, the acquisition was complete. Sarah opened the case file and navigated to the of unallocated space. This was where EnCase 7.09 excelled. Its file signature analysis wasn't just based on extensions; it looked at internal headers (hex values like FF D8 FF for JPEGs). The suspect had changed a spreadsheet's extension from .xlsx to .dll , but EnCase’s View File Structure pane showed the Compound File Binary header instantly. "OLE," Sarah muttered. "You’re hiding accounting data inside a system file."
She used the function—a built-in, C-like scripting language unique to EnCase. A custom script she wrote in 2018, called Find-Offset-By-Date , quickly isolated all files last accessed within one hour of the suspect’s termination date.
Deep within the pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys, EnCase’s found fragments of a deleted chat log. Using the File Carver with a custom header for the chat application (0x4C4F4758) , she reconstructed a conversation. The suspect had written: "Just delete the SQL table and run the disk cleaner. No one finds evidence in unallocated space." EnCase Forensic 7.09.00.111 -x64-
She connected a write-blocker to the suspect’s NVMe SSD. The drive capacity: 1 terabyte. Using EnCase 7.09’s module, she selected a Linux DD (raw) format, verified by both MD5 and SHA-1 hashes. The x64-native engine hummed, utilizing the full 16 GB of RAM on her workstation. The old 32-bit versions would choke on a drive this large; version 7.09, built for x64, handled the 1 TB stream with ease.
She double-clicked the icon: .
The splash screen materialized—a familiar deep blue gradient with the classic gold logo. For the veterans in the lab, this specific version number, 7.09.00.111, was the last of a dynasty. It was the final mature build of the "Classic" EnCase interface before the radical redesign of version 8. It was stable, predictable, and trusted by courts worldwide.
The evidence was admitted.
At 6:00 PM, she clicked . The output was a 300-page PDF with a table of contents, hash values, chain of custody, and every bookmark she had placed. The footer automatically read: "Generated by EnCase Forensic 7.09.00.111 - x64."