How to recover lost data from encrypted ntfs partition after system format or administrator password forgot situation in vista and xp.

Posted in tips & tricks | September 30th, 2007

If you ever had a situation when you are unable to access a particular folder on a ntfs drive like your my documents folder on a ntfs drive after format become unaccessible due to the security structure of the ntfs(New Technology File System) file system.

Let us assume a situation when you have installed windows xp or vista on other drive on your system and you want to access your my documents ,my pictures and some other files your user folder but not able to access may be because you have made your user profile folder and documents as private or some other reason that you are not aware of.

But don’t need to worry as there exist a very simple solution to this problem.

Note: The only thing you need is to login with some administrator equivalent privileges account on the same operating system or any on any other operating system.

Now follow the step by step procedure illustrated below to recover your documents and files.

1. Firstly login with administrator equivalent either on the same operating system or on the new operating system installed on the other drive.

2. Right click on the drive on which the folder resides which you want to recover on the ntfs drive and go to properties.

3. Click on the tools tab>>Backup now ,a wizard will get started which you can customize to select the folder which you want to back up.

So by following the procedure above you will be able to create a backup file which you can restore as the files you want on any other drive.

Now the Funda or The Main Logic Behind this method

In case of windows either with windows xp or windows vista there are some default user groups which are on different levels according to the respective privileges.

One of these groups is the Power Users Group and all the administrator’s of the operating system are a part of the power users by default so any administrator of the operating system which is not able to access those ntfs protected data but can take the customized back up and then after restore the back to obtain the files on some other location or drive.

If you have any problem in recovering your data leave a comment here at the end of the article.

You may like to read some related articles given below.

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16 Responses to “How to recover lost data from encrypted ntfs partition after system format or administrator password forgot situation in vista and xp.”

Ashfame on October 2nd, 2007 | 11:04 am

Nice trick.
Isn’t it a flaw that private folders can be accessed by taking a backup and then restoring it somewhere else?
Anyways, Stumbled!!
admin on October 2nd, 2007 | 11:38 am

Well this is not a flaw as according the system policies power users can take backup of any media…but yes there is some negative aspect to it also.
kozzmen on October 18th, 2007 | 2:46 am

Thanks for this tip.

I have the same problem in home - i have uninstall my XP and install it again. Now I don’t have an access to part of my HDD, where are located all my pictures, personal data , etc.
I will try this when I got home tonight, I hope it will help :]

Thanks in advance!
gabriel on October 21st, 2007 | 11:27 am

it didn`t work with me. I have fomrmated my hard disk but I had some encrpyted files on another one(both NTFS).
Since I`ve got my new system, I cannot access AT ALL them. I’ve tried this back-up thing as well as som other programs. I tried to chance the folder’s owner but it didn’t work out either.
Does any one has an idea on how to break that? Or how to restore the key… is it a file I can try to recover with those programs that rebuild formated files???
The files are very important to me!

Thank you
kozzmen on October 22nd, 2007 | 2:33 am

@gabriel -

I got the same problem and still don’t have a salution… Hope we’ll find one working…
I’ll keep posting here If I find it.
gabriel on October 22nd, 2007 | 7:05 am

ok. i’m looking foward to getting an answer from you soon
ledi on January 31st, 2008 | 2:33 am

Hi. I’ve a Pc which was with 1 partition and was installed Win Xp. This was formatted and installed Win Vista and has been created 2 partition in NTFS. i WANT TO RECOVER THE DATA BEFORE THIS FORMAT, SO THE DATA THAT WERE STORED IN WINDWOWS XP WHEN THE HDD WAS IN 1 PARTITION.i’m trying with getdataback for NTFS but it’s seem that this hdd doesn’t have any preiuous data when he was in XP operating system.Please help me
Arshad on February 27th, 2008 | 1:43 am

I have a lotus notes file that is encrypted by windows (file name is in green). I have forgotten the password by which I have encrypted it. Now I want to access this file and is says access is denied. It is not allowing me to remove encryption also.
Please help.
Praveen Sharma on March 12th, 2008 | 1:50 am

I have some encrypted excel files on pc which is create in xp.Due to system crash i have format my pc. now i cannot access these encrypted file as error com access is denied even the user is administrator.How i can access these files.
muthu on March 20th, 2008 | 3:28 am

I have some encrypted IMPORTANT files on pc which is create in xp.Due to system crash i have format my pc. now i cannot access these encrypted file as error com access is denied even the user is administrator.How i can access these files
SANTOSH SARKALE on April 18th, 2008 | 6:19 am

HI,
I have the same problem in home - i have uninstall my XP and install it again. Now I don’t have an access to part of my HDD, where are located all my pictures, personal data , etc.
I will try this when I got home tonight, I hope it will help

THANKS
SANTOSH SARKALE on April 18th, 2008 | 7:03 am

Hi. I’ve a Pc which was with 1 partition and was installed Win Xp. This was formatted and installed Win Vista and has been created 2 partition in NTFS. i WANT TO RECOVER THE DATA BEFORE THIS FORMAT, SO THE DATA THAT WERE STORED IN WINDWOWS XP WHEN THE HDD WAS IN 1 PARTITION.i’m trying with getdataback for NTFS but it’s seem that this hdd doesn’t have any preiuous data when he was in XP operating system.Please help me

thank you
walid on May 18th, 2008 | 5:44 am

I have some encrypted IMPORTANT files (Excel & Word) on pc which is create in xp.Due to system crash i have format my pc. now i cannot access these encrypted file as error com access is denied even the user is administrator.How i can access these files
Dominic on June 20th, 2008 | 5:02 am

I have some encrypted files on my system. Due to a virus attack or you can say a system crash i had to format my system . Now i cannot access these encrypted file as error and says “Access is denied”. How i can access these files. Please can anyone help…..
CB on July 17th, 2008 | 9:45 am

I tried it out, but i could not access the files, who still were encrypted

I lost access to all the encrypted files after an update crash from microsofts own website :S

What i really should have done, is suing the ass off those fuckers who fucked everything up in the first place, but i cant afford lawyers like they do. So please give me some advice
abhishek on July 18th, 2008 | 2:27 am

@CB - You can’t recover encrypted files using this method.