Re: recovering documents from old hardrive please help

"Joe" <Joe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:6904A516-82CF-49DE-81D3-B6E246E07836@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I recently installed a new hard drive as the primary master for my pc, with a
fresh copy of windows, because the old hard drive had a copy of winxp 64 on
it that failed halfway through install and never could be recovered. There
are still documents on the old hard drive from before i tried to upgrade to
winxp 64, so i plugged in the old hard drive as the primary slave, and it
appears as drive D. I can access all the files on it except for a folder that
i had set as encrypted and hidden, along with all the files in it. It shows
up with the file names, but none of them can be opened or copied to my
primary hard drive because they are protected... is there any way to recover
them?


If they are encrypted with EFS, then no, unless you saved a copy of the encryption certificate and/or designated a recovery agent. Reinstalling created an account with a different SID, even if the account name is the same. The files were encrypted using the SID for the original account. That is one reason why EFS is sometimes referred to euphemistically as a delayed recycle bin. You need to know exactly what you are doing with it.

There is no way that I know of it recover those files, however there is this one article you can look at. Whether it will help you I don't know.

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

Here are some articles in the MS knowledge base about EFS and how best to manage its use.

Best practices for the Encrypting File System
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=223316

How to back up the recovery agent Encrypting File System (EFS) private key in Windows Server 2003, in Windows 2000, and in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=241201

How to add an EFS recovery agent in Windows XP Professional
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=887414



--
Rock [MVP Windows Shell/User]

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: EFS Certificate Needed
    ... Backup and save on non-degrading media the EFS DRA .pfx file ... Foe sure I will follow "Windows Recommendations". ... that recovery agent will only have ... Best practices for the Encrypting File System ...
    (microsoft.public.security)
  • Re: Passwords on Folders
    ... domain computer [there is also a recovery agent for a domain]. ... > Windows under which those permissions were defined. ... use NTFS on your hard drives so you can then EFS ...
    (microsoft.public.win2000.security)
  • Re: EFS Certificate Needed
    ... Foe sure I will follow "Windows Recommendations". ... that recovery agent will only have ... Best practices for the Encrypting File System ...
    (microsoft.public.security)
  • Re: Password question
    ... This change [versus W2K EFS] was done to improve confidentiality of EFS encrypted ... In W2K a recovery agent was required for EFS while it is not in XP Pro. ... are followed including encrypting only folders and may include the use of cipher /w ... > To avoid such data loss, do not reset a user's password. ...
    (microsoft.public.cert.exam.mcse)
  • Re: Password question
    ... This change [versus W2K EFS] was done to improve confidentiality of EFS encrypted ... In W2K a recovery agent was required for EFS while it is not in XP Pro. ... are followed including encrypting only folders and may include the use of cipher /w ... > To avoid such data loss, do not reset a user's password. ...
    (microsoft.public.cert.exam.mcse)