EFS and a whole heap of mess

[Craig Bloodworth]

I store my documents in a folder located on a secondary
drive and decided to encrypt is as I am on a very public
network. However I recently, due to some currupt system
files, had to format my promary drive.

After reinstalling windows I found to my agony that I
can't access my documents as they are still encrypted and
the certficate used to encrypt them is no longer on my
system. I can however view the certificate needed's
fingerprint. Is there any way I can create a valid
certificate or fool the encryption in any way? Or does
anybody know of any tools or companies who could decrypt
the files for me?

Please help!!!
Cheers

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

Craig;
Your data is most likely gone for good.
See this link for ways to prevent this in the future:
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/encrypt.htm

 

[Guest]

yeah agreed
sorry craig from my knowledge they are gone for good

 

[Mandy Shaw]

Seems to me that encryption would be a lot safer if it always came up with a
little warning saying 'Be aware that if you do not make a safe copy of your
encryption key you could lose this data', ideally with a button allowing you
to create that safe copy right away!
My view on it, having read all these posts from distraught users on the
subject, is that without the above I would never advise its use by anyone.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I store my documents in a folder located on a secondary
drive and decided to encrypt is as I am on a very public
network. However I recently, due to some currupt system
files, had to format my promary drive.

After reinstalling windows I found to my agony that I
can't access my documents as they are still encrypted and
the certficate used to encrypt them is no longer on my
system. I can however view the certificate needed's
fingerprint. Is there any way I can create a valid
certificate or fool the encryption in any way? Or does
anybody know of any tools or companies who could decrypt
the files for me?

Your data is most likely gone for good.
See this link for ways to prevent this in the future:
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/encrypt.htm

yeah agreed
sorry craig from my knowledge they are gone for good

Seems to me that encryption would be a lot safer if it always came up
with a little warning saying 'Be aware that if you do not make a safe
copy of your encryption key you could lose this data', ideally with a
button allowing you to create that safe copy right away!
My view on it, having read all these posts from distraught users on
the subject, is that without the above I would never advise its use
by anyone.

Myself, I think people should quit trying things without understanding them.
It's people who don't use common sense about things like this that are the
reasons for the lawsuits like "I burned myself with hot coffee from
McDonalds, but I didn't expect my coffee to be hot."

 

[cquirke (MVP Win9x)]

On Fri, 28 May 2004 19:38:32 -0500, "Shenan Stanley"

Myself, I think people should quit trying things without understanding them.

I agree with you, but this is perhaps the inevitable result of
knee-jerk advice such as "use NTFS it's more secure". Waving things
like EFS around as single-line bullet-point Good Features is quite
likely to see newbies using these inappropriately, and getting hurt.

But that's salesmanship, which has always been concience-free.

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No, perfection is not an entrance requirement.
We'll settle for integrity and humility