Laptop won't boot – need Windows key…

slipd · 13 Oct 2011 at 19:19

Hi guys,

Got a laptop with a badly damaged (over 1000 bad sectors found during diagnosis!) hard drive, that's fine, but I need the key out of the OS before I bin the drive. The Microsoft sticker usually found on the underside of laptops has long since perished

I can get into the drive via ubcd4win and slax, so the drive's still partially accessible – just need to get the key out…

Any ideas?

Deception · 13 Oct 2011 at 19:31

Could you possibly put the HDD in another PC as an external? or see if you can run something like Produkey as all you need is to tell it where the Windows folder is etc.
Produkey

richb93 · 13 Oct 2011 at 19:51

If it has Vista or 7 it will have a certificate in the BIOS (called SLIC) which works in conjunction with a digital certificate. Therefore you don't need a specific key for it. Just download the matching certificate for the machine and add it into a vanilla Windows install disc (instructions available online) to use the licensed copy of Windows for the machine. Did this for my current laptop so I could install a vanilla copy of Windows without the extra crap they bundle with it.

slipd · 14 Oct 2011 at 19:46

Deception said:
Could you possibly put the HDD in another PC as an external? or see if you can run something like Produkey as all you need is to tell it where the Windows folder is etc.
Produkey

This might be doable if they do a bootable version? Do they :confused:

Deception · 14 Oct 2011 at 20:05

sam.wheale said:
This might be doable if they do a bootable version? Do they

Well he did say he could get in to it via ubcd, so I kinda guessed he could get a bootable OS and get in too