Date: 08/02/05 (Computer Geeks)    Keywords: no keywords

I have an external hard drive with quite a considerable amount of memory that is encrypted with Windows XP EFS Encryption. The original OS that it was encrypted under has been completely formatted. Therefore, I am now left with a bunch of unusable encrypted files on this external drive. The files are important to me, but as I being a college student don't have the sufficient funds to take it to a data mining company.

My question is: How, if at all possible, can I try to decrypt these files. I do not have the original OS on the computer, but I do still have the computer that the files were encrypted on. My research across the net comes up with programs that can dig for EFS Encryption Keys on the OS, but these don't generally work because they don't exist anymore. What I'm assuming, is that there is a way to decrypt the files with a program although it may be tedious and time consuming. I currently have two computers both about 1.5 Ghz and 512 DDR Ram.

Any relevant information would be greatly appreciated.

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/computergeeks/741344.html