encryption

hello

i just recently backed up my files on a external hard drive and encrypted them for safe keeping. my computer crashed a few hours ago and i sought to reload my files. however, after i had reinstalled windows, i am not able to access my files on the hard disk. also, it will not let me un-encrypt the files.

any help would be extreamly gratefull as the drive has 298GB of files on it!

i am running Windows xp media center edition 2002 and my hard drive is a Seagate Desktop Freeagent 320 drive that is full!!! (once formatted its 298GB)

 

How did you encrypt the drive? Is there a password? Is there something different about the disk? Encryption is meant to be hard to break, so you may be outta luck. I believe that Windows ties the encryption to the user, so since you probably have a different user now, you might need to manually decrypt things somehow. Do any errors pop up? Dialogs? What exactly do you see when you try to access the drive?

 

hey thanks for the reply! ok, i am using Windows XP Media center edition so therefore it has the encryption feature like XP Pro (this is where u right click on a file or folder, go to properties, then advance, then check the box "encrypt fcontents to secure data". as you said, yes, i have a new user account because i had to reinstall windwos. when i try to do the opposite of the method explained above, i get a error saying access is denied. when i try to open a file like my ATI driver for my X1400, it says "Windows cannot open the specified device, path or file. you may not have the appropriate permissions to access them"

it lets me see the files, just not open them

and i guess the encryption would be through Windows File Encryption System

 

It may be possible to decrypt them after you take ownership of them, per this Knowledgebase article: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=308421

I'd try it with something non-critical first, to be sure it works.

If you can take ownership, you can try to decrypt per this article:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=308993

If the encryption really is tied to the user/administrator who created it, you may be out of luck.

There's a program that claims to be able to decrypt files, regardless of whether you are the owner. As long as they are encrypted under XP. They claim it can decrypt the files even if the disk isn't bootable. You might want to do some research on them, though, before paying the $99 for the program. Here's a link: http://www.elcomsoft.com/aefsdr.html

 

hey thanks for sharing! only i dont get the part when it says

"Click Advanced, and then click the Owner tab."

i do not have a owner tab that is there, so does that mean there is nothing i can do?

 

I think Elcomsoft is pretty reliable, Dmitri Sklyarov works for them. They're the company Adobe tested out the DMCA against a few years ago, for marketing an ebook decoder. They seemed to handle themselves admirably during the whole ordeal.

 

thanks for the link to the site: http://www.elcomsoft.com/aefsdr.html

i downloaded their trial and even on their web site it said that the program (full version as well) can only recover damaged keys that are still existing. mine are long gone though.

however the good news is that half of my pics were being shared on Windows Live Messenger so i was able to get them back, as well as having all of my music on my MP3 player!!!