decryption problems

i've read a lot of the thread that you have posted and none seem to apply directly to my particular problem.

background:
gateway mx6445
amd turion 64 mobile
microsoft windows xp media center edition
version 2002
service pack 3

previously, i encrypted a folder using the advanced tab of the folder properties. i have never had any problems in the past. under the same username that has administrator properties and full control of the computer, i am not able to access any of the files.

word 2007
"word cannot open the document: user does not have access privileges."

adobe reader
"there was an error opening this document. access denied."

microsoft office excel
"excel cannot access "filename.xls". the document may be read-only or encrypted."

"filename.xls" cannot be accessed. the file may be corrupted, located on a server that is not responding, or read-only."

i have run malware, spybot, superantispyware, ccleaner, mgtools, and several others. still having problems. i even did a reset.cmd (recommended by microsoft)...

 

still having the same problem trying to access my files. i read some more of the threads located here on majorgeeks and found one that discussed user accounts.

the folders are what i have listed under documents and settings are:
administrator 26.3mb
all users 169mb
default user 22.5mb
localservice 737mb
networkingservice 333mb
owner 4.85mb
owner.xunekat 17.6gb
owner~1~xun 0bytes (what is this folder???)

why so many folders? i can imagine the admin, all users and owner.xunekat but, what about the default user, owner, and the other owner~1~xun?

when i check user accounts in the control panel, i only have owner and guest. the owner account is computer administrator with full access. guest account is turned off.

i don't recall erasing any cert files and i don't recall changing settings for users until after i started having these problems.

really need the help to access the folders 'cause this is where 90% of my information is. thanks in advance.

 

i've read up on encrypted information without much luck except for one program...

subinacl.exe

the notes on this program sound promising however, i have absolutely no idea how to run it. i have read the instructions from the microsoft website and tried a couple of lines but, nothing happened. VERY FRUSTRATING!!!

any help or ideas would greatly be appreciated...
thanks

 

I think your problem might be related to the multiple owner accounts. I'm not sure exactly why it happens but when you have an account name like owner.xunekat it is generally some sort of recreated account that has a strange name because the original name is taken (in this case owner). My guess is that the folder you encrypted was done under the original owner account and not the owner.xunekat one. I don't know how to login to one of the other owner accounts or if it is possible. I'm going to try a few things over the next day or two.,

I don't have an answer to your problem. I was playing around in Safe Mode with the Administrator account, it allows you to see the encrypted files but not use or decrypt them. It appears each user has a unique encryption key which can only be found when logged onto the account.

I'll let you know if I find anything of value.

*******
You may try Safe Mode. Right-Click the folder select Properties>Advanced>Owners tab and check who is the owner of the folder. It will probably just say owner.

I'm assuming you are running as owner.xunekat because that account is using the most space(16GB). Do you have a lot of files in My Documents or the desktop?

 

sach2,

first of all, thanks for helping out!!!!

i checked properties of files and it states that users who can transparently access this file:

owner(owner@xunekat)

it also gives a certificate thumbprint.

i don't have many files in my documents or on my desktop. what i have done is placed a couple of folders on my desktop and within those folders, i have a breakdown of all my files. four in particular that have all of the encrypted files. so, i created two more folders to begin again.

do you know anything about the subinacl.exe program??

thanks again,
jack

 

I don't know about the subinacl.exe program but I haven't seen it referenced in respect to encryption. I'm going to take another look at the commands available but I think it comes down to having the proper personal encryption key that is generated for each user and only accessible from that user's account.

I'm still looking trying a few things. It looks like it may be very difficult. Have you changed your password on your account recently? I see you only have the one account that you use so this probably isn't applicable but changing the password from another administrative account makes the users encrypted file "access denied" until the password is changed back to the original one.

**
BTW, I am second guessing this being a problem with the extra owner accounts since they are so small they have probably never been logged into.

 

sach2,

i have never had a password on this computer until about three weeks ago (long after i ran into this problem). last night, i removed the password. however, prior to this problem occuring, i was sending some confidential information to a client and i tried to encrypt it within the excel program. it was confusing to the client and he was having to download and install some other programs so, we canceled the encryption and resent it.

about, a week or two after this we began having the problems previously mentioned.

i have only ever used one account which is the one that i currently use. the only other time i have changed to anything else was in safe mode as administrator. well, at least, i don't remember using any other account.

thanks,
jack

 

appreciate the advise for the subincle file. i won't mess with it. however, i had been messing with microsoft efs assistant a while back and i'm almost sure that may be what screwed things up.

i can log on as owner and administrator but still cannot access my files as either. everything give me an access denied answer.

supposedly, i'm able to log on as the owner of the documents and access my files but, i'm not able to access them, add user's to these files, or even access them with the admin account.

 

sach2 and domluc:

well, good news!!!! i farted around with everything i could think of and finally after a couple of weeks of research and your help, i stumbled upon someone else's problem which was very similar.

the response to this problem was to contact elcomsoft about a password recovery program called, "advanced efs data recovery."

it decrypts files that have been encrypted and saves copies of them to another folder. so, you keep your encrypted files in their original form and you get a decrypted copy in another place. it works and doesn't take but a couple of minutes (depending on amount of files). i had over 8,000 files that were encrypted. most of them were word and excel documents. anyway, i thought you guys might like to know about this...

good luck and thanks for everything.
jack

 

I'm glad you found a fix. I've been testing various tricks and had no luck. I guess if it was easy to decrypt files there wouldn't be much point in encrypting them in the first place.

Amazing that it only takes a few minutes for the software to work.

Thanks for the update.