Decryption Problems

[Guest]

I had several of my files encrypted when my hard drive died. I managed to get
my files back using the restore utility, but many of them are encrypted using
a now-inaccessible encryption key. I did a backup of my entire hard drive,
including system folders, so is there a way I could extract the encryption
keys from that?

 

[Guest]

You may want to check this out:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;264064&sd=tech

Just curious, why are your files/folders encrypted? Did you somehow created
these on an admin user prospective and now cannot access them in another user
login?

GLuck!

 

[Guest]

No. I share my computer with other people, and encrypted certain program
files as a temporary way to keep others from using them until I learn how to
keep them from using them. Then my hard drive stopped working, and
apparently my backup pfx that I made is now invalid, so I can't read the
encrypted files from my own backup!

 

[Mike Fields]

Your backup pfx is invalid ?? or you can't read it from the media
it was saved on ?? If you can still read it, you should be able to
"import" the key and decrypt the files.

mikey

 

[Guest]

I'm not sure why, but every computer I try to import the keys to says the pfx
is invalid. I have it on a USB flash drive, which every computer I've tried
can use perfectly. Is it possible that a file on a flash drive could have
some sort of single-bit error on it? In the past, the first time I
reinstalled Windows, the key imported just fine, but now it doesn't work.

 

[Mike Fields]

No idea on that one unless the key is really corrupted for
some reason. You might try over in the
microsoft.public.security.homeusers group and see if
anyone there has any ideas.

mikey