I recently upgraded my motherboard and Windows XP failed
to boot, so I had to reinstall the OS. Unfortunately, I
had a few files encrypted through EFS and I can no longer
access them, despite giving myself the same user name and
password as before. I still have access to my original
profile files and windows directory, since I installed
into another windows directory (however the old windows
directory fails to boot). I tried following the
directions at
http://www.beginningtoseethelight.org/efsrecovery/ but
got really confused, like how to convert the machine ID
into hex (I tried converting their sample and couldn't
figure it out just converting from decimal to hex). Is
there an easier way to access my old Windows registry so
that I can restore what's needed? Or if anyone has
access to more comprehensive directions than can be found
at the site above about how I can access my files, I'd
really appreciate it.

Thanks!

I've sat with half a hard drive, for almost a year now,
that I can't access because of this same problem. If you
get any help or anybody that reads this knows, please
contact me.