[Solved] Help accessing encrypted files Windows 7

Hey all I encrypted some files on my E drive to secure them. About two months latter my C drive crashed and I had to reinstall windows 7. Now that I have done this I cannot access any of those previously encrypted files. I have the password that was used to encrypt them, but I am unable to access any part of the file. I have taken ownership of all of the files, but even after doing that and making all of the files visible I am unable to remove the encryption and unable to open them still. Any help would be appreciated.

Seriously? Nothing? Nobody?

rwgwiccan

With no offense meant to you, these kinds of questions are usually against forum policy. Some small number of posters are actually trying to access devices or files of which they are not the owners.

That said, two questions: What application was used to encrypt them? In most cases, if you reinstall the same version and have the password and, if relevant, the key files, you can decode the file. I personally use PGP and have found the encrypted files to be compatible across systems.

Two other thoughts: Is it possible that the system crash corrupted the encrypted files, which would render them useless? Do you have backups, either encrypted or unencrypted.

Encryption used by Windows is tied to the user, if you forcibly change a user password from another account you will see a warning message come up stating that some types of encryption and rights management may not work if you do this.

Even creating a new user with the same name won't work, the security ID is created for each account. New account with same name is a totally different account to Windows for security purposes.

Unfortunately most people don't backup their keys BEFORE issues happen, which is when you need to in order to recover.

Thanks. Did you ever recover the files?