Cannot access Vista Drive

[UUVGuy]

Upon reinstalling Vista on another HD due to a catastrophic boot failure, the new install won't let me access the old drive. I CAN access it with XP Home but, I have some encrypted files I would like to recover and XP Home doesn't do encryption. I have managed to salvage just about everything else but I was wondering how to recove the ecncrypted files since I can't move them as move access is denied as well.

Thanks

 

[Lemon13]

u need to be admin and take ownership on the files/folders in question 2 copy them

if u dont have the recoveryagent certificate as an backup u wont be able to decrypt the files

 

[UUVGuy]

How do you take ownership of the drive?
I have admin right currently and I have gone into to the properties window for the drive and attempted to give both System and my login full permissions on the drive to no avail. If I can get into the drive, I can find the cert.

 

[Lemon13]

in explorer, right click drive, properties, security, advanced, owner, choose take over objekt and subfolders

 

[smah]

If you do not have the encryption key or a preconfigured recovery agent, you won't be able to decrypt the files.

 

[UUVGuy]

I have taken ownership of the drive and it still says access denied. I have given the administrator account full permissions and still denied.

I have the key for the encrypted files so once I get them copied over, I should be able to resave them once I get the drive cloned.

 

[tlcscousin]

You might have to take ownership of every folder (file) individually. I find quite often doing the one folder and taking ownership doesnt seem to work quite as it should.

 

[linney]

What version of Vista are you using?

EFS, Credentials, and Private Keys from Certificates Are Unavailable After a Password Is Reset

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290260

Recover encrypted files or folders

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/2bfc10ba-0869-47cd-9fb2-aee51a8a375a1033.mspx

Create a recovery certificate for encrypted files

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-us/help/90cdd1fe-9cbb-4adc-bccf-7d613425e15e1033.mspx

 

[UUVGuy]

Vista Business

 

[UUVGuy]

tlcousin,
The problem is that I can't even get into the individual files in order to take ownership. The drive says I have ownership but still won't let me access it in Vista although when running XP, I can access it just fine except for the encrypted files of course.

 

[linney]

Maybe you are seeing a problem in passing down the Inheritance from C: drive to the Child folders?

How inheritance affects file and folder permissions

http://technet2.microsoft.com/windo...1277-48da-b321-be7c5dd317091033.mspx?mfr=true

How far can you dive down into the sub-folders on C:drive before you hit the access denied snag? Can you change the access permissions at that point and press on?

 

[UUVGuy]

I finally gave up and cloned my reinstalled Vista over it. There were really only a few files that were encrypted and I decided I could live without them. Some I can recreate without too much trouble. I've learned the hard way that I have to back things up. I've never had this much trouble before but I now have a large external hard drive for backup purposes now. Thanks for all your help and suggestions all.

 

[smah]

If you're going to use EFS in the future, create a Recovery Certificate before you need it see the link that linney posted above.

 

[UUVGuy]

Hindsight is 20/20 vision. I have definitely learned my lesson.