[CoolGal007123]

My PC recently crashed. I re-installed Windows (XP) adn it's working fine. However, my music folder was encrypted (It was encrypted before my PC crashed). The Music folder is on an external hard drive. When I try to play a file, it does not work. I tried decrypting the files but that doesn't work either. A message comes up saying "Error Applying Attributes".

PLEASE HELP!!! I have like 5,000 songs that I can't even play

Thanks

[muckshifter]

Only the user who encrypts a file can recover data that has been encrypted, unless the user specifies a recovery agent before they encrypted the files. To make sure that you can decrypt files in the future, you should always export your certificate and private key and keep them in a safe location.

sorry, I think you lost the lot.

[Silverhazesurfer]

The first question is what did you use to encrypt the files. I would start there. Encryption, generally speaking, uses keys to access information. These keys are generated by the installation and will vary from installation to installation and user to user. I would try to contact the company that made the software you used for support.

If you used Windows to encrypt the files, there is a possibility that you can access them. This depends on the version of Windows. You could try to take ownership of the files using an administrator account.

Try this on for size.

http://ask.metafilter.com/4108/Decry...-by-Windows-XP

Good luck.

Edit: Try this one as well, as google returns it as the top result for the exact error you see.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308993