decrypting a slave HDD

I have an 80 GB HDD which contain an encrypted folder with family pictures and videos.

This folder was encrypted by myself for 3-4 years ago.

The HDD was a slave hdd in my old computer and when I was re - formatting my master HDD I've loose my encryption key for the folder on the slave hdd.

I didn't take any backup of this key.I used encryption option in XP .

How can I get access to the files from that folder on the slave hdd?

Now i'm using Vista ,but i can install on a test computer xp if necessary ,for recovery the pictures and videos.

Any help,step-by-step guide,tips,3rd party encrypted file recovery software refferal it will be appreciated!

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Comments

jgladwell

Don't know how it will work, I just did a google search.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Security/Decrypting-Decoding/EFS-Key.shtml

rono

thank you..I will give it a try

rono

It's looks like this is an " mission impossible".

Neither apps on the market(Elcomsoft and Passware) can fix this even they says that their apps do!

The only way out in my situation is to pay Microsoft to fix that;they have an app called reccerts.exe which is only avaiable if you open and pay a fee ...here in Norway it's about 700$

dynamik

The "problem" is that EFS encryption is very good. I assume any attempt to crack it would take years, at a minimum. It looks like those apps, along with reccerts.exe, requires the key to be present on the system. Something you may want to try is looking at file recovery software. There may be a chance that your old profile is still on the disk. As long as the installation didn't write over the same parts of the disk as where your profile was stored, you might be able to recover it and use those other tools. It's a long shot, but I'd look into it if that data is important to you.