EFS decryption

Question

I have a Lenovo laptop that required a new motherboard. After Lenovo installed the replacement motherboard, they advised that the laptop needed to be re-imaged. in advance of the reimaging, I saved my important folders to an external ssd. However, when I copied them back to the laptop, they could not be opened. There is a yellow lock next to each file. the error message is "Word cannot open the document: user does not have access privileges".

Answer 1

16 May 2022

Further to the problem I have, is it possible to reverse the re-imaging process back to the original state of the laptop? Also, is it possible to search the laptop for a file with the certificate in it?

Thank you. Brian

Without a certificate, it will be impossible to recover the files. This is why when doing any sort of file encryption, you should always have an unencrypted backup.

Answer 2

Hi Brian,

If the Windows has been wiped out and a new operating system is installed on it, unfortunately, you can not recover it. As for third-party recovery software, it would be hard to decrypt the encrypted data, however, you may have a try and better than nothing.

Kind regards,

Answer 3

16 May 2022

Further to the problem I have, is it possible to reverse the re-imaging process back to the original state of the laptop? Also, is it possible to search the laptop for a file with the certificate in it?

Thank you. Brian

Answer 4

16 May 2022

Dyari,

Thank you for taking the time to look at the issue and reply.

I don't think there was an EFS certificate copied.

As the software for EFS is a component of Microsoft Windows, I would have thought that once I showed that the files were mine, they could have generated a certificate: but unfortunately, they were not helpful with a solution.

Surely, I'm not the only one caught out like this.

On Recuva, will it decrypt an EFS encrypted file?

Thank you. Brian.

Answer 5

Dear BrianO'Sullivan4,

I'm Dyari. Thanks for reaching out. I will be happy to assist you in this regard.

Have you backed up the EFS certificate before wiping out the Windows?

Refer to How to Back Up Your File Encryption Certificate and Key in the non-Microsoft link below:

https://smallbusiness.chron.com/encrypt-decrypt...

If you have lost it as well, unfortunately, there is no Microsoft native tool to recover the encrypted data except restoring from a backup if you created one.

Otherwise, you should use a third-party recovery tool like Recuva, it may recover your data.

Please let me know if you need further assistance.

Stay safe

Similar thread:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/for...

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