Recovery of Encrypted WinXP files

charliemass · March 3, 2005

I know this comes up alot as i guess there are a lot of us dummies out there - but have recently updated my motherboard and processor and thus reinstalled windows XP over my previous installation forgetting that my old login was password protected.

now i can browse to my "my documents" folder, I can see the folders though cant click into them (access denied) and using Advanced EFS Data recovery I can see into the folders but this doesnt let me do anything with them (a select all, copy and then paste to somewhere else would have been handy here).

I know this question must get pretty tedious, but if anyone could help out it would be *very* much appreciated.

Charlie

AndyFair · March 3, 2005

Are you using the trial version of AEFSDR? This version has limited functionality, and the ability to save unencrypted files somewhere else is probably one of those things that's been disabled. You need to decide whether access to your files is worth the $99 that this package costs.

Rgds

AndyF

charliemass · March 3, 2005

This is probably something really simple as the recovery software doesnt even acknowlege that the files are encrypted, which i guess technically they are not, i just dont have user rights to them as they where password protected in a user account that no longer exists and isnt recognised by my new windows install.

so like i say, inside of AEFSDR it doesnt seem to notice a problem and when i search for encrypted files returns nothing and happy lets me browse through the files i cant get at through windows explorer as though nothing was wrong with them.

charlie

charliemass · March 3, 2005

This is probably something really simple as the recovery software doesnt even acknowlege that the files are encrypted, which i guess technically they are not, i just dont have user rights to them as they where password protected in a user account that no longer exists and isnt recognised by my new windows install.

so like i say, inside of AEFSDR it doesnt seem to notice a problem and when i search for encrypted files returns nothing and happy lets me browse through the files i cant get at through windows explorer as though nothing was wrong with them.

charlie

AndyFair · March 3, 2005

Ah, I see - so they're not actually encrypted as such, they just have permissions set to another user?

If this is correct, and you have admin rights, you should just be able to do the following:

- right click on the topmost folder

- select properties

- select the security tab

- click on advanced

- click the owner tab

- click on your current username in the "Change owner to..." box

- tick the box marked "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects"

- click Apply

Hope this helps

Rgds

AndyF

charliemass · March 3, 2005

Many thanks for this - will try when i get home tonight and let you know how i get on.

charlie

theefool · March 3, 2005

If you have XP pro, just ignore on this babbling....

One note: If this is XP home, you are not going to be able to change permissions on any files. Unless....

http://www.microsoft.com/ntserver/nts/downloads/recommended/scm/default.asp

Even though this says NT server, you can still run it on XP Home.

The actual file...

ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/bussys/winnt/winnt-public/tools/scm/scesp4i.exe

This will give XP home the security tab, like XP pro.

Another couple files to try, are command line based, one is CACLS, the other is XCACLS (CACLS I know comes with XP pro, XCACLS you are going to have to download from MS)

I know this works, cause I've used it on many XP home boxes.