EFS Data recovery

  • Thread starter Thread starter Pascal ILBOUDO
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Pascal ILBOUDO

After reinstalling a new OS (the old one had crashed) using the same
password and computername, I still cannot acces to my encrypted data which
was saved on D-drive?

Would appreciate any help

Thanks a lot
 
Unless you can get your old OS to boot up (that is, without installing - as
Windows 2000 installs over 2000, it does not upgrade it) you may be in big
trouble.

Did you export your encryption recovery key (private and public)? Was your
PC a part of an AD domain?

If the answer to both of those questions are 'no,' then you are pretty much
out of luck.

If you are on an AD domain, you may want to check with your Administrator to
find out if he has set up a group policy enabling him to become a recovery
agent for your data. If you do have the encryption keys saved, you can
import them on your new Win2k load and recover your data from there.

Good luck,

:(

Rob
 
Just to add, your EFS keys are stored in your user profiles and depending on how you
did your reinstall if your old profiles are still intact or on a backup from a time
after the files were encrypted you may be able to recover the data but not via normal
methods, you would needs a third party program or call MS support which would be $100
minimum either way. If you formatted the whole system partition, then you will not
get your data back. See the links below for EFS best practices. --- Steve

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;223316
 
Hey - I didn't know this...! :)

What location are these files stored in? We had a batch of laptops go out
without exporting the private key first, (we are not on AD yet) and I'm
fearful that the laptop will have "an incident" where I won't be able to
recover their system.

Rob
 
The files needed are actually stored in documents and
settings\username\application data\Microsoft\crypto and \protect. However you
can not just copy them to a new computer. The users or recovery agents password
must also be known as the password protects the EFS private key. I would
encourage your laptop users to export their certificate/private keypair to a
..pfx file and keep it safe. See the link below for more info. -- Steve

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