To recover a device, you must have an emergency recovery information (ERI) file for the device. If you don’t have an ERI file specific to the device you are recovering, the data is lost.
An ERI file is a password-protected file that contains the encryption keys to the encrypted volumes of the hard disk. Each volume has its own encryption key.
The ZENworks Full Disk Encryption Agent generates an ERI file the first time disk encryption is applied to a device. After that, it generates a new ERI file any time the encryption settings (volumes, algorithm, key length, an so forth) are changed.
The ERI files are uploaded to the ZENworks Primary Server. If a new ERI file is generated but the agent does not have network access to the ZENworks Primary Server, the ERI file is stored and then uploaded when network access is restored.