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EFS on Windows XP user can not open EFS protected files after changing user name and password

I have a WIndows XP Prof. user who can not open some EFS files after turning on EFS for some files and folders and then later changing his user name and password.

The user said he was changing passwords and even user names after he had setup EFS for some files and folders and now can not open the EFS protected files. He does not have a EFS password recovery file etc..

He is not sure what the password originally was and he said he even changed the user name etc.. He is not sure about the orig. user name or password.

Is there a way to be able to open these files? Some of the files are important TurboTax files and some are pictures that are important to the user.

I have read if you change the password back to the one used when EFS was turned on for that file or folder that would work. But he can not remember the password and he even changed the user name.

I also read if you copy to FAT32 (not NTFS like the disk drive XP is using that EFS is not kept....

Not sure if it is as easy as removing the hard drive, connecting to USB to IDE or SATA harness and copying the files to another NTFS or FAT hard drive etc... Also, in XP I am not sure the administrator account could help if enabled etc..

Thanks

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huacat

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rdwolf

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Thanks for the help. The info. is useful. I will try, if possible, next week but it seems the user has changed the user name and can not remember the old user name now.