we had windows 2000 professional on an old PC and took all the files
(data) off of that old PC and put it on a new PC with windows 2000
professional on it. When we went to open our old files on our new
machine it asked for a encruption number from the old machine.
Unfortunately we deleted everything off the old machine after we took
the data off and put it on the new machine. We vaguely remember
originally when we started to use the old machine it gave us a code or
number and asked us if we wanted the machine to remember it (check
here) which we did but now we do not know how to open the data on the
new machine without that number.

Hi there!

Unfortunately, without the GUID (Globally Unique IDentifier) of your
old Windows 2000 user account, you will be unable to recover your
files.

Windows 2000's file encryption (called EFS) is set up so that without
a recovery policy put into place (usually on a Windows 2000 server),
the files are unrecoverable. This is really the goal of EFS, to make
sure people that are not you are unable to read your personal files.
Unfortunately, when you re-installed Windows 2000 on your new machine,
a new, and totally seperate, GUID was created. Now when your computer
attempts to access the encrypted file, it can tell that the GUID of
the person attempting to read the file is not the same as the GUID of
the person who encrypted the file.

For more information about Windows 2000 EFS, I recommend the following
link:

<A HREF="http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/docs/encrypt.doc">Microsoft
Windows 2000 Encrypting File System White Paper</A> [228k MS Word
Document]

The following Microsoft Knowledge Base article describes a possible
scenario of recovering your data if you created a local EFS recovery
policy when you installed Windows 2000. This policy is something you
need to manually create after setting up Windows 2000.

<A HREF="http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q255742">Methods
for Recovering Encrypted Data Files (Q255742)</A> [Microsoft Knowledge
Base]

Labmice.net has several good resources on the EFS:
<A HREF="http://www.labmice.net/Windows2000/FileMgmt/EFS.htm">http://www.labmice.net/Windows2000/FileMgmt/EFS.htm</A>

I apologize the outcome wasn't quite what you were looking for :(

Thank you for using Google!

Sincerely,

Axe

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Clarification of Answer by axe-ga on 06 May 2002 09:32 PDT

Apologies for the HTML code in my answer.

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Request for Answer Clarification by deago-ga on 06 May 2002 11:55 PDT

I saw once where there is a "Back Door" procedure to get to you data
if you forgot your number. Do you know that procedure?

---

Clarification of Answer by axe-ga on 06 May 2002 12:33 PDT

Hi again!

Unfortunately, if you did not set up a recovery key/policy per the
documents I quoted in my answer, there is no "back door" procedure. :(

The only other solution would be if you had a full backup of your
prior Windows 2000 installation. If you do, doing a full system
restore would restore access to your files (at least temporarily so
you can copy them to another machine). If not, there isn't anything
that can be done aside from cracking Microsoft's file encryption.
While I believe EFS only uses 56bit keys, the time to crack using
computing equipment available to the average user would still be
unfeasable.

Google Groups, which archives most Usenet forums, provides stories
from a few people with the same plight as you. None of them seem to
have had success in finding any way around the issue.

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=crack+ntfs+encryption&hl=en&start=40&sa=N

Again, my apologies that there isn't much more that can be done. If I
can be of any more assistance, please don't hesitate to ask for more
clarification.

Thanks,

Axe

The question was not answered. The is an answer to my question and I
found out the answer my self and obtained a CD that had a device that
allowed me to find the missing code.No money should be charged to my
account.

A typical Window type problem...
Have you ever tought of giving a try to a Macintosh?
No hasstles...and no virus!
Have a good day!