Re: Need help unencrypting files after computer exploded

John Wunderlich wrote:
"Twayne" <nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:#qu5DrevJHA.4592@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

John Wunderlich wrote:
=?Utf-8?B?bWlrZXltYXNvbmlj?=
<mikeymasonic@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:01C01B45-E3AF-43CB-925A-1101F5FCC19A@xxxxxxxxxxxxx:

right so this is a little ridiculous. i had picture files on my
computer that i encrypted, but of course i did not backup the
efs file, awesome! so then one day my mother board caught on
fire, yeah i know... so then i unplugged it and it put the fire
out, and i was able to salvage my hard drives from it. so i
bought a new tower and put said hard drives in (without
formatting) and now i'm having a hard time accessing those said
encrypted files. i just wanted to find out from the source if
all hope was lost or if there is some kind of magic way i can
un-encrypt or retrieve a efs file. thanks-

mikey.

I assume you're installing your salvaged drives as slave drives
in your new system...

The only possible chance that you have is if you can find another
machine that has virtually the same motherboard, video card, and
chipsets that your old machine had and you could swap your drive
in that machine and directly boot-up from your salvaged drives.

Even then it may not work as it is not exactly clear where
Windows gets all the bits from to encrypt the certificate.
-- John

Won't work. Any resintallation of any kind generates new keys for
the encrypted data. Once it's gone, it's gone, even on the exact
same machine, unless you hae the exported keys.

True, but as I read it, he didn't do a re-installation. He simply
installed the old drive either as a slave drive in his new computer or
he tried to reboot new computer with his old drives. The first won't
work for the reasons you point out, the latter probably wouldn't work
because the hardware has most likely changed too much and it may not
boot properly.

-- john

Just for grins, I did a little looking around and since he still has the
original drives, he might be able to eek something out of them. See my
other response to John B. if you're curious - good links but a lot to
get one's head around without past experience. If he can make it work,
he'll be the first I've ever heard of. I learned the hard way about
keeping the private certs around too<g>.

Twayne

Twayne


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Need help unencrypting files after computer exploded
    ... so then one day my mother board caught on ... and i was able to salvage my hard drives from it. ... un-encrypt or retrieve a efs file. ... Windows gets all the bits from to encrypt the certificate. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.security_admin)
  • Re: Encrypted partition solution for Windows OSes?
    ... is to encrypt the file, ... For Windows you have several ... choices, PGP, and GnuPG, as well as Guardbot for web based file transfers. ... files as drives, and aren't terribly interesting. ...
    (Focus-Microsoft)
  • Encrypted vs file permissions etc.
    ... Inadvertantly clicked Encrypt, ... to trash the C drive drastically and after two days, figured reinstalling ... I got file or security permission errors when I ... -- I can NOT copy them to any DIFFERENT drives. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support)
  • Encrypted vs file permissions etc.
    ... Inadvertantly clicked Encrypt, ... to trash the C drive drastically and after two days, figured reinstalling ... I got file or security permission errors when I ... -- I can NOT copy them to any DIFFERENT drives. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.security_admin)
  • Re: I really do like OS X but . . .
    ... This is almost as silly as saying "XP can only encrypt data if it's on an NTFS drive". ... You can encrypt data on other local drives. ... or possibly an external drive--in which case you can use an encrypted disk image. ...
    (comp.sys.mac.advocacy)
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