My laptop running vista x64 experienced hardware failure. The hard drive appears undamaged, and when I connect it to my win7 desktop, I can read all the files except the EFS encrypted user folder, which contains the data I would like to recover. No EFS certificate was ever backed up or exported from the vista volume. The vista install appears to be intact.
How can I access the files in the EFS partition, to copy them onto my win 7 machine (e.g., without booting into the old vista volume)? I know the vista user password, and the original EFS certificate should still be embedded in the Vista installation on the drive.
I'm aware of the Elcom recovery program, but I would rather not spend the $150 if I don't have to.