Vista File Permission Dilemma

[nihil]

I guess that you will have to do some research on that. I guess it all depends.

Try the trial of that commercial software:

http://www.crackpassword.com/products/prs/mswin/efs/

and see if it tells you it can recover your data. If it can't, I would say that you won't be able to crack it either.

What you might try is a data recovery tool and see what you can restore from the previous Windows install. This is what is claimed:

Advanced EFS Data Recovery is a powerful data recovery tool that helps recovering the encrypted files under various circumstances.

• EFS-protected disk inserted into a different PC
• Deleted users or user profiles
• User transferred into a different domain without EFS consideration
• Account password reset performed by system administrator without EFS consideration
• Damaged disk, corrupted file system, unbootable operating system
• Reinstalled Windows or computer upgrades
• Formatted system partitions with encrypted files left on another disk

Another possibility lies with how Efs works. It copies stuff into (hidden?) temporary files before encryption, although I am not sure about the Vista version.

It doesn't erase the files AFAIK but marks them as deleted. You might be able to recover the unencrypted files. The files you are looking for are Efs0.tmp

If you have overwritten the required files you have lost your data. I do not believe that it is possible to break the encryption by brute forcing within a realistic timescale.

EDIT:


You might look at this. Not sure if it applies to Vista though:

http://www.beginningtoseethelight.org/efsrecovery/