EFS Problem Desperate For Help

[Nathan]

Hello all. I have a BIG problem. I had Windows XP Pro
installed on a machine with 2 HD's split into 3 Partitions.
Disk0 - c:\ (OS Partition=12GB NTFS) and d:\
(Storage1=26GB FAT32)
Disk1 - e:\ (Storage2=19GB NTFS)

I had a file on drive e:\ which contained private
information so I encrypted it using EFS. Sometime later I
reinstalled Windows without decrypting the file first and
now I can't open it. I'm stumped. I was able to get the
SIDs of the two users that had access to it bfore if that
will help. Does anybody know someway of recovering the
file? Please email me with any solutions. Thanks.

[Torgeir Bakken (MVP)]

Nathan wrote:

> Hello all. I have a BIG problem. I had Windows XP Pro
> installed on a machine with 2 HD's split into 3 Partitions.
> Disk0 - c:\ (OS Partition=12GB NTFS) and d:\
> (Storage1=26GB FAT32)
> Disk1 - e:\ (Storage2=19GB NTFS)
>
> I had a file on drive e:\ which contained private
> information so I encrypted it using EFS. Sometime later I
> reinstalled Windows without decrypting the file first and
> now I can't open it. I'm stumped. I was able to get the
> SIDs of the two users that had access to it bfore if that
> will help. Does anybody know someway of recovering the
> file? Please email me with any solutions. Thanks.

Hi

Take a look at this site:

http://www.beginningtoseethelight.org/efsrecovery/


--
torgeir
Microsoft MVP Scripting and WMI, Porsgrunn Norway
Administration scripting examples and an ONLINE version of the 1328 page
Scripting Guide: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter

[Nathan]

Thanks. I looked that over but unfortunately I formatted the drive before reinstalling and have used it many times since. As a result any remnants of a key are gone. The funny thing is though I used the demo of AEFSDR and it found a Master Key on the parti
tion where the encrypted files are. However I can't get it to decrypt the master key. I'll look into trying Passwares EFS utility. Thanks Again