Windows XP Encryption

[Pappy]

Howdy, A friend of mine was backing up his documents and pictures onto an external hard drive because he was planning to reformat his hard drive. For some reason he used windows to encrypt the files and now he can't access thoes files. Anyone have any suggestions as far as recovering the data? The user account he created the encryption with was wiped with the reformat.

 

[LittleMe]

Could give this a try.

http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-encrypted-data.htm

or this

http://www.crackpassword.com/products/prs/mswin/efs/

 

[RoBo]

If those don't work, you're screwed.

 

[SdeWndr]

If you use the "Take ownership" option... won't that allow access? I can't remember.

 

[da sponge]

If you use the "Take ownership" option... won't that allow access? I can't remember.

No. Without the account, or at least access to the original registry he's screwed.

 

[LittleMe]

If you use the "Take ownership" option... won't that allow access? I can't remember.

That only works for NTFS permissions, not encryption.

 

[leSLIe]

next time, tell your "friend" not to encrypt his pr0n

 

[Pappy]

next time, tell your "friend" not to encrypt his pr0n

He is here in Korea with me and it was mostly screen caps of his son's birth (via webcam) Kind of a bummer if he can't recover the files.

 

[SpaceHonkey]

He is here in Korea with me and it was mostly screen caps of his son's birth (via webcam) Kind of a bummer if he can't recover the files.

Agreed, but technically it's a feature not a bug.

 

[nessus]

This article talks about best practices for encryption: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/223316/en-us

The most relevant portion for your case is this:

"Why you must back up your certificates

Because there is no way to recover data that has been encrypted with a corrupted or missing certificate, it is critical that you back up the certificates and store them in a secure location."