WinXP File Encryption

[billxp]

A friend of mine encrypted his music on his e drive back when the lawsuits started. Why I haven't a clue. He doesn't either. Well anyway he got some virus and had someone reformat his c drive and reinstall winXP. He never backed up his keys. Cause he didn't know about them. Great lesson to learn I told him.

Well is there anyway to regain access to the files?

[Jeffbx]

Sorry man - looks like he may have screwed the pooch on this one. From http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;223316&Product=winxp :


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. You can also specify a recovery agent. This agent can restore the data. The recovery agent's certificate serves a different purpose than the user's certificate.

So, without a copy of the certificate or a recovery agent, there's no way to recover the files.

[billxp]

Thats what I figured. I told him its only 30gigs of music.
You live and learn. It wasn't like stuff he can't replace. Lucky him.

Curious if he really wanted to recover this stuff, who would he contact?

Any ideas on what they might charge.

[Dman33]

I am pretty sure I know of a way around this... at least on 2000 which should not be too different.... let me look it up and get back to you.

Okay, these two tools might help out:
http://www.lostpassword.com/efs.htm
http://www.elcomsoft.com/aefsdr.html

Now, I thought there was a way you could 'create' a recovery agent but my memory is fuzzy... let me think about it.

Note: There might be a way around the 'demo' version of EFSKey but I will not post it here as it would violate G|A rules. PM me if you are curious.