As far as I've read from Microsoft's EFS (encrypted file system), there are only three ways to really get to encrypted files.
a) Sign on as your original user who encrypted it. Of course this isn't an option.
Sign on as the "recovery key" owner. This is usually the administrator of the domain that your computer would run on. If you have a non networked computer then the recovery key owner is the administrator of the computer itself. This is normally a *bad* thing because your encryption passwords can be read off your hard drive, but in your case, this could be a good thing. If you managed to somehow keep the administrator the same across your two installs, then your current admin might still be authorized to recover your files. Give it a try.
Note that the key recovery feature of Win2k is actually quite impressive. It's meant to work, and from a theoretical crypto standpoint, it's pretty solid architecture.
c) This means that "programs" to crack it will not be little downloads that are of the same class as programs to crack your MS Word passwords (those even have intentional time delays put in to make the decryption look authentic). Sine the EFS uses DES 128 bit, it is estimated as hard to crack as RSA 1024 bit. This is of course for a brute force attack. If you do find a way to get around it, please post, though, becuase it would be important crypto news. Sorry to break the bad news on this front.
[This message has been edited by Aero (edited 23 July 2000).]
