Can I recover my user-encrypted files from a readable but non-bootable W2k system disk?

[netnews.comcast.net]

Recently one day my W2k workstation system disk was suddenly no longer
bootable. Right after the BIOS screens, I'd just get a black screen and
nothing else. So I bought a brand new hard disk, installed Win2k from
scratch on it, and then inserted the old system disk in my box as an extra.
I found that I was able to read the old disk just fine in Windows Explorer
and so I recovered my old data.

The problem is that I had some files (tax files mainly) that I had encrypted
using the built in Windows encryption. And since my new installation has
new SIDs, I cannot decrypt them. The only way I can figure out how to
decrypt them would be to somehow make that old system disk bootable again.
But I have failed in my meagre efforts to do that: I didn't have an
emergency repair disk (yes I know, stupid)
and though I tried to "repair a damaged Win2000 installation" with my W2k
install disk, it told me that it could not find a Windows installation on
that old system disk.

Can anyone suggest any other way I might decrypt those files? No doubt I
could load the registry hive files from the old disk in Regedt4 so perhaps
there is some way I could copy the user/SID data out of the old registry and
decrypt. Is that possible? Or if there was some way to make the disk
bootable, that would work as well

I'm a software developer and am very comfortable with low level tools if
that helps. I'd appreciate it if anyone has any suggestions on how I might
go about retrieving my data before next tax day rolls around.

Thanks,

Joe

 

[Miha Pihler]

Best way to go about this is to try and make your old HDD bootable again.
What was the error that you got when your old HDD failed? Have you tried
with e.g. fixmbr or fixboot tools (if the problem was e.g. boot related)...

Otherwise, if you won't be able to make your old HDD bootable and you didn't
export your encryption keys I am afraid your files are as good as gone...

 

[Joe O'Leary]

(Original poster replying here -- I've corrected my username on this group
from "netnews.comcast.net" to the proper name)

Thanks, I'll search for it.

-Joe

 

[Miha Pihler]

Yes, fixmbr and fixboot are MS tools and you get access to them when you
boot from e.g. CD to Recovery Console.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;229716

I am just afraid it won't work :-\

If it is hardware problem ... then maybe you could try and clone the
original HDD and restore it to new one hoping it will boot ...