I have saved my files using EFS (Encrypted File System) in windows 7 32 bits and regularly accessing my files. When I installed windows 7 64 bit on my computer system I am not able to access my files. The files are Microsoft Office 2010 Documents.
Is there any software which can be used to access the EFS protected files.
I have reinstalled the operating system windows7 64 bits after formating system drive of windows7 32 bits.
I have no Multiple Operating System on my computer.
well I hope you backed up your EFS certificate. Then you just import it. If you don’t have it, your files are lost. Also, run MMC after the import (done by just clicking on the backup certificate), and make sure that no other certificate was created in the meantime, making things a bit more complicated
ps: and no, there’s no software, just your keys (EFS cert) can do the job ;D
I’m afraid the decryption keys for the files are stored somewhere in the operating system. So, if you reinstalled the OS and if you didn’t back up the corresponding certificates / keys before that - or right after you started using EFS initially (I believe Windows ask you to back up the key once you enable EFS)… there’s no way to access the files anymore.
There’s a (commercial) tool by Elcomsoft, called “Advanced EFS Data Recovery”… but it’s basically trying to break the encryption without the key, so I’m not sure how likely the success is, and how long it might take.