I backed up data onto a removeable drive then reformatted my computer. Now, trying to get the files back onto my new install, I realized some files and folders were encrypted with EFS (resulting in green file names). I've resigned myself to forever losing this data. But does anyone have a solution? Apart from brute force attacking it?

do you know the previous login password for your old install and/or did you back up your key pairs?

edit: it looks like EFS has been fairly resistant to brute forcing. were you using XP or 2k? this could make a difference, as they used different crypt algos, and windows 2k gave the admin a 'master key' (data recovery agent) to any EFS on the system. XP does not have this option.

some recovery software here:
http://www.forensi...rypted_File_System

LabMice has a good collection of articles on EFS in general, with a section dedicated to recovery:
http://labmice.tec...0/FileMgmt/EFS.htm

if the info is of serious value, you may even want to contact a data recovery group about it.

Unfortunately, no. It was an afterthought -- after I already formatted the computer. Data gone forever, right?

if you dont have anything.... things dont look good. check out the above links anyways, you never know what you might stumble across.

Sorry to hear of your problems. If the data is really valuable it probably could be recovered, but probably not cheaply.

In the future set up separate OS and data HDs to help avoid this in the future. I've lost some data too... shit happens.

I actually just ordered a copy of Advanced EFS Recovery that should arrive in the next few days; Do you still need recovery? If so, what OS were you using?