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I had a file which contains images and videos, I was using the windows 7 ultimate and I had encrypted the file. Now I have copied that file to my hard disk and format that operating system and again. I installed a fresh copy of operating system windows7 ultimate, now when I want to see my file which I had saved in hard disk, file is not opening and generate some permission issues.

How can I recover my data?

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  • Can you confirm that: 1. The file was encrypted using Windows 7 Encrypting File System (EFS) by right-clicking on a file, choosing Advanced and selecting "Encrypt contents to secure data". 2. Do you have a backup of the computer before you reinstalled Windows? 3. Where did you copy the file when you reinstalled Windows?
    – Bernie White
    Commented Sep 22, 2011 at 10:33
  • Pls add specifics on how files were encrypted (missing at time of posting this comment).
    – Garrett
    Commented Dec 9, 2011 at 15:58

2 Answers 2

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Do you have a copy of the key?

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Recover-encrypted-files-or-folders

Connect the drive that contains the encrypted file. Connect the drive that contains the backed-up certificate and key. Start certmgr.msc Import the certificate

You should now have access to the files.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb457020.aspx

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you can never open the encrypted files if you don't have the certification keys for the OS where you encrypt this file.

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    Do you mean the "encryption keys" and not "certification keys"? I'm not sure what a "certification key" is.
    – schroeder ♦
    Commented May 6, 2015 at 18:57

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