[Enigmail] secret key needed?

[Christopher M. Logan]

Charly Avital wrote:

> 
> Could you please be more explicit. What exactly did you do to your key?
> Or do you mean that you generated a new (additional) key pair? If so,
> what happened to the "old" key? Is this "old" key still valid, meaning
> do you have, in your secret keyring, the secret key that opens the "old"
> public key?
> 
The old key is gone.  I had to reformat my drive, and i forgot about
saving my original keys

>> He had both my old and new key to open old e-mail that i sent.
> 
> To open (decrypt) old e-mails that you sent to him, he does not need
> your key, old or new. He only needs to have his secret key that "opens"
> his public key to which you encrypted messages to him.
> 
> You indicate that he has both your old and your new key. To which of
> these two keys is he encrypting his e-mails to you? Is it possible that
> he is still using your "old" public key? 


No he deleted my original key.


>> I tried to sign this response but i get:
> [...]
>> http://enigmail.mozdev.org' -t
>>  --clearsign -u <chrismikall at gmail.com> --passphrase-fd 0 --no-use-agent
>> gpg: skipped "<chrismikall at gmail.com>": secret key not available
> 
> Is "chrismikall at gmail" the User ID of the "old" key?

no, i'm using this e-mail address to subscribe to the newsgroup.
> 
>> gpg: [stdin]: clearsign failed: secret key not available
> 
> You should change, in your gpg.conf file, your 'default-key' to show the
> Key ID of your "new" secret key. Your default-key is the key you use to
> sign.
> 
my original key doesn't exist anymore (anywhere) on/off my PC.  I did a
full PC search for gpg.conf and couldn't find it.

-Christopher