I cant Access my files

Caledon Ken said:

Folks I know there are already to many cooks in the kitchen but felt I wanted to jump in.

First I think we all agree that the lock symbol in the upper right hand corner means the file is encrypted.

If we all agree on this then we are after the encryption keys.

Changing owners, removing icons, changing permissions, disabling encryption is not going to unlock these files.

If I'm off base let me know.

so @ohaa

Were you using EFS file encryption on your files before you clean installed your system? This is not on by default, someone had to enabled if it was enabled.

Did you take an system image of your system before you deleted and re-installed?

Did you follow all the recommendation to backup your encryption keys? This key has a file extension .pfx
Please search your files, start with your Documents and look for a file with this extension.

Assuming you find this file did you write down the password you used on this file.

I don´t know why people think it is encrypted. I have seen that padlock in files with permissions issues. It´s been a while since I used EFS, but from what I remember it just changed the color of the font. Ransomware just changes the extensions and Bitlocker doesnt add any overlays.

I still think this is a user/permission issue.

yes they are. Like I said, I havent use EFS in a while. Anyways, the OP said he never used EFS.

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Caledon Ken said:

Fair enough but I've never seen a lock on a file that I didn't have permission to.

From the screen shot in post one



and from Brink's tutorial


The icons are identical right down to the brown bars.

If it is permissions, and I accept that, then shouldn't the take ownership process resolve. If we enable the built-in admin would that have authority?

I think he would have to add himself to the ACL. Just taking ownership is not enough.

Caledon Ken said:

@ohaa

Please confirm you ran this tutorial

Add Take Ownership to Context Menu in Windows 10

and added take ownership to the context menu.

Then right click a file and in the context menu that appears click Take Ownership. I've used this dozens of time successfully and I just want to confirm you are doing what I do.


By the way did you search for a file with the extension I mentioned. PFX

I've followed the instructions on the tutorial, but this didn't fix my problem.
Can anyone get into my pc and fix the problem using any remote program like Anydesk?
I'll be very appreciative of that.

1. Download PowerRun from PowerRun v1.4 (Run with highest privileges)
2. Extract the files and double-click to run PowerRun.
3. On the toolbar, at the right end, click on the "Launch Command Prompt" icon.
4. Run this command: Start "" "D:\Testing\Testing.txt" after replacing D:\Testing\Testing.txt with the actual path to your locked file.