dr_hawkins

well, I am a bit ashamed, but...files are gone. I have no idea why they disappeared - I just tried to log in as administrator and done nothing - they weren't there already, however, thanks very much for all your replies. Just one more question: something's weird - is it me, or the computer??

something else just came into my mind - those files can be opened in Advanced EFS Data Recovery AEFSDR. It finds "masterkeys" of that user (=myself, but in another and impossible to boot XP instance), isnt it possible to use these somehow? (make a "security certificate" - or what...)

no operation allowed at all Is the problem in windows or NTFS? (thinking of some DOS utility) ...formatting is quite a bit uncomfortable

Is there any way to delete EFS (Windows XP) encrypted file? I tried few "secure delete" software, but with no result (acess denied).