blown mobo encryption on Ext hard drive

Hello,

I tried to add RAM to my old computer. Somehow I did something which caused smoke to rise from the machine. Not much but I could smell it. When I put old RAM back in and thought I'd just stick with what i had it would not boot up. I played with the RAM and got like an opening screen on the monitor which DID say AMD 3000 but that was it besides the monitor brand... After playing some more I found that I could every now and then get it to display both AMD 3000 AND RAM (not the correct amount it should have though) and then it stopps doing anything.

Now to the real issue. I encryted some files using the preinstalled encrytion software in Win Vista then transferred them to an Ext hard drive thinking I only wanted them to work on THAT computer anyway. I then deleted them from the desk top hard drive. I now have them stored on the ext HD and all was fine till the smoking incident.

I took the HD out and put it in another computer. Everything was fine but the files were encryted and would not open on the new computer with the old HD. The new computer is windows Ultimate.

Is there ANY way to open those files from what I've written. Please, any help would be greatly appreciated!! The key should be on the desktop HD right? Is there a way to access the key from another computer??

 

have you tried using the HD from the old pc in another pc ?

use the drive in another pc as the main boot drive ( take out the new pc's boot drive and replace with the old one )

boot into safe mode from the old HD hopefully it should let you do that
now try and retrieve the encryption key or plug in the external drive with the encrypted files and decrypt them

worth a try...

 

OK I think I understand what you're saying. My new computer has two drives already. How can I tell tell which is master and slave? To boot in safe mode I just keep pushing F8 as it starts correct?

So
1.I put old HD in new computer as master.
2. I boot in safe mode by pressing F8 at start up.
3. I get encrytion key through safemode or just plug in ext HD and try to open files.

Will it matter going from windows Vista to Windows Ultimate?


I was thinking maybe there was a way to trick the new computer into thinking I was on the old computer by making a new user account using the password for the old computer... Wishful thinking but thought I'd ask...

Sorry, I am just kind of feeling my way around and not very computer literate...

Thanks sooo much for your help though!

 

I'm not sure about retrieving the encryption key I'd have to look into that.

Just to rule out the old computer. Have you tried just one stick of RAM in different slots to see if it will stay on longer? That may be worth a quick try to see if you just damaged one or more RAM slots.

Also take a smell of the powersupply where the plug goes in the back. If the strongest burning smell is coming from the power supply rather than the motherboard it may be the powersupply that went bad. (Not sure if this is likely since you seem to get intermittent power.)

 

let me know how you get on