How to Recover Data from an Encrypted (EFS) Hard Drive Partition in Windows | 2024

Overview of Recovering Data from an EFS Formatted Drive

"I have a 160 GB hard drive partition on my computer used as a photo library to store all the precious photos of my life. I stored nearly two years of photos there and encrypted it to prevent data loss issues. Then, I upgraded my computer from Windows 8 to Windows 10. Now comes the problem – I forgot the EFS encrypted hard drive partition password and wonder if I can still access my photos and recover them from the EFS encrypted hard drive partition? Besides, I want to transfer these pictures to a new external hard drive. So, can you help me export all the photos from the EFS hard drive partition in Windows 10?"

If you come across such an issue and are unable to access an EFS partition or hard drive on your PC or Mac, don't worry. Here, you'll find the solutions needed to instantly recover data from an encrypted hard drive partition.

Trying to unlock hard drive to resolve Windows installation issues? Proceed to the linked page.

1 - Decryption of an EFS (encrypted) hard disk partition

Here are two ways to do it in Windows and one way to do it in Mac OS.

Decrypting a Windows hard drive - Option 1

If you have the certificate for an encrypted (EFS) hard drive partition, you can easily access the data on the disk. Here are the detailed steps to decrypt EFS (encrypted) hard drive partition in Windows 10/8/7:

Step 1: Open the Run dialog (Win + R), type certmgr.msc, and press Enter.

Step 2: Open Certificate Manager > In the left pane, click the Personal folder;

Step 3: Choose Actions > All Tasks > Import, and follow the Certificate Import Wizard.

5. Follow the on-screen instructions to decrypt the hard drive partition, and then you can retrieve all of your data from the partition and transfer it to a new storage device.

If you do not have any certificates or passwords to decrypt the EFS (encrypted) hard drive partition of the Windows operating system, you may attempt the following solutions.

Decrypting a Windows Hard Drive - Option Two

Type “diskpart” in the search bar > List disks (you should be able to spot your encrypted drive by its size, make a note of its number) > Select disk x (where x is the number from the previous step) > Clean > Create primary partition > Select partition 1 > Active > Format fs=ntfs quick/nooverride > Exit.

For example:

Deciphering the Mac Hard Drive

Open a Terminal window and paste: sudo chflags nouchg /Volumes/* Press Enter, type your administrator password, and press Enter again. Type: sudo chmod a+rwx /Volumes/* Press Enter, then type: killall Finder Press Enter.

After you complete all of these steps, you'll be able to decrypt your Mac's hard drive. If you forget your password, you can remove and decrypt the Mac's hard drive by following these steps:

1. Open Terminal and type: diskutil cs list then press Enter.

2. The terminal generates a hierarchal code. In the code, copy the alphanumeric code next to the Volume Group.

3. Type: diskutil cs delete XXXX____YYYY___ZZZZ___XYZ (where XXXX____YYYY___ZZZZ___XYZ is the UUID of your Core Storage Logical Volume Group) and press Return.

2 - Use software to recover data from the decrypted hard drive partition

After decrypting the HDD, you should be able to open and use the data that was previously saved on the encrypted hard drive partition. If you're still unable to access the saved data, relax and let professional data recovery software step in to help.

A professional EFS recovery alternative – the Data Recovery Wizard tool can help you access all saved data from the previously encrypted hard drive partition. It is available in both Windows and Mac versions. Download the respective version as per your requirement.

The Tool Data Recovery Wizard can access data on previously encrypted hard disk partitions in a Windows OS without using any password or certificate. You can download it for free and follow these steps to restore your files, like photos, to a secure location on a new storage device or PC.

Step 1: Select the hard drive where you lost data and click on "Scan".

When the scan is complete, use the “Filter” or “Search” option to locate the lost file.

Step 3. Select all the files you want to recover and click on “Recover.” Browse and choose another safe location to save them.

You can also watch this video tutorial on how to recover data from a hard drive.

After you recover data from an encrypted hard disk partition, you can format it to NTFS to make it usable and readable again.

Tool Data Recovery Services

Contact our experts for a free assessment.

Consult with Tool Data Recovery specialists for one-on-one manual recovery services. After a free diagnosis, we offer the following services:

• Repair of damaged RAID structures, unbootable Windows OS, and corrupted virtual disk files (e.g., .vmdk, .vhd, .vhdx)
• Recovery/repair of lost partitions and repartitioned drives
• Unformat hard drives and repair original drives (including BitLocker encrypted drives)
• Fix disks turned into GPT protective partitions