How to decrypt files/folders?

[barnettgs]

My friend's pc hard drive has failed and their files are saved in 2nd hard drive which is good thing.

But after installing new hdd & windows xp, I noticed that their work on 2nd hard drive is encrypted so nothing I can do to decrypt them? It seemed like an own-goal to me!

 

[bledd]

unless they backed up their encryption key, they're 100% screwed

if its encrypted, it should be green in colour..

 

[barnettgs]

unless they backed up their encryption key, they're 100% screwed

if its encrypted, it should be green in colour..

Yeah, it is green text.

But if they have backed up key (via other media), how to do this as decrypt option is greyed out?

 

[bledd]

i've never done it myself, look on microsoft.com for help

have they backed up the key? (99% sure if they have then there's a wizard to unlock the files, or to assign them to the new user account)