EFS recovery given everything but the Registry

Question

I have an unfortunate problem: my old Win Xp installation has died, probably due to the hard drive failing. The drive now fails all SMART tests, but I can get files off it OK.

I have now installed Windows 7 on a new drive, and want to transfer files from the old drive. However, some sensitive files were in an encrypted folder (I think EFS?). How can I un-encrypt them, given that I have essentially my entire old XP installation on disk? Thanks!

Answer 1

If you used EFS encryption on these files and had not exported the EFS certificate, and private key and don't have a valid backup of the system from before it failed then I think your files are gone for good.

Answer 2

You'll need to fire up the XP installation and export your EFS private key.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc722147(WS.10).aspx