This might make your brain hurt, but here goes.....I have 2 folders that were encrypted on a Windows 2000 Pro PC, using NTFS, and were backed up to a hard drive using Backup Exec. Well, my OS got bunged, and I had to reinstall, so I decided to install Windows XP Pro. No big deal. When I restored the files, the 2 folders were still encrypted and gave me access denied. Did I save the key ? No. I realize my SID has changed, and it doesn't know who I am. My question to anyone who might know is, is there a way around this ? The only thing I can think of is to restore these folders to a FAT or FAT32 partition to strip away the NTFS permissions, but I'm not sure if that will work. Anybody ?
Thanks in advance for any help

I think your pretty screwed. If there was a way to strip away the "encryption", then it wouldn't be done very well.

Personaly, and you might want to try this in future, I use PGP to encrypt my files. It has something called PGPdisk which allows you to have a virtual partition that it encrypts on the fly - having the added advantage of using just a passphase, and being able to mount it even if you do lose your NT profile.

Hope the data wasn't anything important... maybe there is a brute-force hack program out there.. but I'd imagine it'd take a while.

--Cynan.

I'm pretty sure recovering them to a FAT or FAT32 partition and 'stripping away the encryption' is not an option.
What exactly would the use be of encrypted folders if within a few minutes somebody could read all the data inside?
You've stumbled accross 128bit security and I think you've got a fair few years ahead of you now using some kind of brute force program before you see that data again