Question

Undelete and Recover Win XP Pro's EFS encrypted files

Asked by: DRNOTWO

Hi Experts,

How do I undelete and recover deleted files encrypted with EFS in windows XP PC? I accidentally deleted an excel file encrypted with EFS in my XP OS PC. I can undelete and restore the file successfully to another partitions using many software such as Norton , Ontrack easy recovery , Winternal Disk Commander , Getdataback for NTFS ,R-undelete , Restore2000 , PC Inspector , O & O Unerase , File Scavenger .
The problem is when I opened the undeleted file with Excel2002 , it showed only garbage.

Also I tested with a small simple text file (encrypted it with EFS ,then delete , then recover).Also I can't open the undeleted file. If the file was not encrypted, I can successfully open the recovered file.

I am the only user on my PC with Administrator Privilege. I installed all the security fixes and patches at my Windows XP Pro SP1 based PC. Norton Antivirus auto protection enabled with latest virus definition files applied.

I think it is because of EFS security features . Please shed some light on this problem.
 
Thanks in advance.

DRNOTWO



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Asked On
2004-02-26 at 16:52:02ID20899608
Tags

encrypted

,

undelete

,

xp

,

files

,

efs

Topics

Windows Network Security

,

Encryption for Network Security

Participating Experts
2
Points
0
Comments
7

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Answers

 

by: Joseph_MoorePosted on 2004-02-27 at 23:10:36ID: 10474975

After you undeleted the encrypted file, can you unencrypt it? Can you uncheck the check box for encryption?
Or is the EFS checkbox NOT checked?
I just have a feeling that when you undelete the EFS-encrypted file, that it will not come back as being encrypted, even though it IS still encrypted.

 

by: DRNOTWOPosted on 2004-02-28 at 00:07:09ID: 10475069

Joseph Moore,
After I undeleted the encrypted file,
(1) If the file is saved to a FAT32 or NTFS partition I automatically got the normal unencrypted file which showed only garbage.
(2) If the file is saved to the same encrypted orginal directory where deleted file is existed I got encrypted one and it also showed garbage. From this step if I uncrypted the undeleted file it only showed the garbage again.
(3) If I put back the file get from No(1) method to the orginal encrypted folder, it changed to encrypted format again but the result is also garbage.
 
>>I just have a feeling that when you undelete the EFS-encrypted file, that it will not come back as being encrypted, even though it IS still encrypted.

I think also the same as above. Usually when an encrypted file is copied to a FAT32 partition, encrypted file message box showed up to confirm ingnore.  

 

by: DRNOTWOPosted on 2004-02-28 at 14:00:33ID: 10477666

I have found an answer.

Question closed.

 

by: Joseph_MoorePosted on 2004-02-28 at 21:33:19ID: 10478986

Oh, good then. What was it? I'm curious.

 

by: DRNOTWOPosted on 2004-02-29 at 00:34:20ID: 10479247

Joseph Moore,

Here is the answer I had found by myself.

http://www.lc-tech.com/filerecovery_pro.htm

 

by: moduloPosted on 2004-04-27 at 15:07:23ID: 10933643

Closed, 500 points refunded.
modulo
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