hey guys. i kind of have the same problem. i had xppro w/ ntfs and 2 hd's (c & d). i had some encrypted files on c but then moved them to d so i could reformat c again. before i reformatted i "thought" i had backed-up my key. what i have is a file i put on a floppy and it says "certificate backup.pfx." anyways, once i reinstalled windows (xppro again w/ ntfs) on c, it wouldnt let me see the enrypted files. i put the floppy in, double clicked it, it ran me through some wizard and said "successfully imported" or whatever. well whatever that did, it didn't allow me to see my encrypted files on d. btw, it wont let me move them either. so i got to thinking....i had a norton ghost image that i had burnt on some cd's when i originally installed xppro (the same install that i encrypted the files with) but it isnt ntfs (it was a fat32 image but i later changed it to ntfs...which is obviously why im posting lol...didnt know if that would matter). anyways, i made a ghost image of my current system, loaded up the old ghost file but it STILL wouldnt let me open the files! i left the install drive (c) as fat32 but d was still ntfs. would that have mattered? i dont see why...i mean as long as i had the right "key" or whatever in the os??? maybe i could reload the old fat32 system again and convert to ntfs...i mean thats all can think of. oh..btw..when i put in the old fat32 ghost image in my current system, norton will let me browse through the folders!!! is there anything in there i could extract or use?? hey guys, i appologize for this being so long but i wanted to give as good as details as i could. thanks again for any and all help.