Hi there, I am having problems decrypting files in a EFS and I am trying to recover using the recovery agent but it is not working as expected. Please bear with me as my knowledge of EFS and Certificates is basic… I am guessing that the root CA has been changed. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated as the “alternative copies” of the file I made are not available. I started this mess by encrypting a folder in my home directory. This is shared folder on a Windows 2003 DC which also issues our certificates. Something changed between October 2010 and January 2011 because I can open files from Jan but none from before Oct. I get an access denied error whenever I try and open, copy or decrypt the problem files. If I look at the Encryption details for my file I can see my user ID under users who can access the file and administrator under DRA’s. I have checked my users Certificate Thumbprint in the certificates on the server using Certificate Authority and I can’t find a match. If I log onto the server with my user and open my personal certificates I can see a matching certificate however if I open it I see “This CA Root certificate is not trusted. To enable trust, install this certificate in the Trusted Root Certification Authorities store”. There is also a second certificate with a thumbprint that matches the files I can open and note that they are issued by different sources. The certificate for the problem file says it is issued by my user ID but the other file the CA, MASTER. From my reading I thought I would be able to log onto the server as administrator and decrypt the file but this doesn’t work. If I look at the domain group policy for EFS Public Key Policies I can see a file recovery cert with the thumbprint that matches the DRA on the file that I need to decrypt and it looks ‘ok’. This cert is issued by administrator. If I look at the personal certificates for admin I can see the cert there as well. This is not in Certificate Authorities. I have some .PFX and .CER backup files but not quite sure what they are or how to use them. Up creek no paddle.. Does anybody think this situation is recoverable or am I wasting my time? Cheers Andy