How do I recover Vista's product key?

[vistahatesme]

Setup: XP Pro on 2x500gb drives in raid-0.
Vista HP for system builders on 1x 320gb drive.

I use the bios boot menu to select between loading XP (e:\) or Vista (c:\)

My c:\ drive is failing, so I did a backup to my raid-o.

I've lost my OEM Vista CD and case, so with it I lost the product key which
was printed on it. Is there a way for me to recover the Vista key, without
being in Vista itself?

Vista refuses to boot, or even show a splash screen. It took around an hour
of effort to get past my bios boot screen with the Vista drive plugged in.
(which makes me think it's an HDD issue, unplugged I boot to XP quickly)

I've tried using applications such as produkey and keyfinder, but they just
show my XP product key.

I followed the advice here:
http://www.dagondesign.com/articles/windows-xp-product-key-recovery/

and dragged my ntuser.dat file from Vista to my XP desktop, but after
running loadhive.exe, it just appears to be my XP key, not my Vista key.

If anyone can let me know how to get my Vista product key, without booting
into Vista itself, much thanks!

 

[Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin]]

Your Windows product key is usually available on your Certificate of
Authenticity sticker located on the chassis your machine if your system came
preloaded with Vista, usually at the bottom of a laptop. If your key has
some how become lost or stolen, try RJL's software Windows Product Key
Viewer for product key recovery, supports both Windows Vista x86 and x64:

http://www.rjlsoftware.com/software/utility/winproductkey/download.shtml

 

[vistahatesme]

:

Thanks for the quick reply! Actually it is a homebuilt system. I purchased
Vista home premium from Newegg, but lost the dvd (sticker too).

I ran the program you suggested from within Windows XP, the only OS I can
boot into. It gave me my XP product key. Is there a way to get it to give
me my Vista key, even though I am unable to boot into Vista?

 

[Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin]]

Oops, I thought you were gonna repair the Vista installation then install
the program I linked you to.

Can you even boot in Safe Mode?

Try repairing your system. Boot from your Windows Vista DVD, select the
System Repair Option > on the setup screen, select 'Repair Computer > Select
your installation of Windows > select Startup Repair option and follow
instructions.

 

[vistahatesme]

Actually, I can't boot into safe mode, I have difficulty even getting my PC
to boot at all with the Vista drive plugged in.

XP let me know several hours ago the drive wasn't able to be accessed, so I
think it finally died, along with my OEM key, gone for good. I guess it's my
own fault for not keeping better tabs on my Vista DVD.

 

[vistahatesme]

Thanks again for the replies!

Let me restate: Yes I am aware that there are many programs which will give
you the product key of Win XP, Vista, Photoshop, Office, etc etc etc
providing you are actually running off of the drive which has said programs
installed.

I am accessing my Vista drive via my XP install, because the Vista drive
will not boot period..... wait, let me redo this.

-------------
-------------
I have a 500gb hdd with XP pro. It works fine and loads XP pro.

I also have a 320gb hdd with Vista, oh noes! the hdd failed! the hdd won't
even post in the BIOS on boot 99% of the time!

I can boot into XP pro all day long, because that drive works fine! horray!
but what I need to do is boot into Vista, so I can run
jellybean/produkey/keyfinder/winproductkey etc etc etc etc..... to run one of
these programs to get my Vista oem license key from my Vista installation.
The problem is, I can't boot into Vista since the drive that it is on is
almost totally dead.

So; how do I run jellybean/keyfinder/winproductkey/ etc etc and point it to
read from the Vista drive, NOT XP drive, and output the product key for
Vista? Most if not all of these applications run dumb with no command line
variables supported at all.

 

[Malke]

Thanks again for the replies!

Let me restate: Yes I am aware that there are many programs which will give
you the product key of Win XP, Vista, Photoshop, Office, etc etc etc
providing you are actually running off of the drive which has said programs
installed.

I am accessing my Vista drive via my XP install, because the Vista drive
will not boot period..... wait, let me redo this.

-------------
-------------
I have a 500gb hdd with XP pro. It works fine and loads XP pro.

I also have a 320gb hdd with Vista, oh noes! the hdd failed! the hdd won't
even post in the BIOS on boot 99% of the time!

I can boot into XP pro all day long, because that drive works fine! horray!
but what I need to do is boot into Vista, so I can run
jellybean/produkey/keyfinder/winproductkey etc etc etc etc..... to run one of
these programs to get my Vista oem license key from my Vista installation.
The problem is, I can't boot into Vista since the drive that it is on is
almost totally dead.

So; how do I run jellybean/keyfinder/winproductkey/ etc etc and point it to
read from the Vista drive, NOT XP drive, and output the product key for
Vista? Most if not all of these applications run dumb with no command line
variables supported at all.

If the drive is dead - and you know this for sure because it failed the
diagnostic you performed with the drive mftr.'s utility - then the only
way to get data off that drive is by sending it to a professional data
recovery company such as Drive Savers (my preference) or Seagate Data
Recovery. General prices run from $500USD on up. Drive Savers recovered
all the data on a failed laptop drive for one of my clients and it cost
$2,700. He thought it was worth the money; only you know what your data
is worth. I understand that some insurance companies are now covering
data recovery charges so check with yours.

Drive Savers - http://www.drivesavers.com
Seagate Data Recovery Services - https://www.seagatedatarecovery.com/


Malke

 

[merlin]

Hi 'vista hates me'

yes, its frustrating when people don't understand your very clear
request.

We are very ( that translates to +23 years) experienced in data
recovery from simple file deletion to recovery from crashed, encrypted
Terabyte raid arrays.
http://www.aurora.se/customers.htm

We know of no program available to the public that retrieves Vista
keys from an external drive. We DO have tools to recover such
information, but the previous contributer has also clearly advised a
data recovery company as a last resort.

FYI, You might wish to take a look at Aurora Data Recovery. Its a very
respected company recovering data for both private clients, but even
for some of the largest and most experienced corporations in Europe.
Your hard disk problem should be a simple matter for a company that
works 27/7 from 09:00 until 23:00 with such incidents. We assume that
the data on your damaged is of considerable value, since cost of a new
vista (student/home) license is not prohibitive

As you will see from the "what does it cost" pages, the fees are very
much lower that the previous contributers example.
Additionally, (genuine) private persons receive a very generous price
reduction.

Its at least worth taking a look at their site or even giving them a
call.

( one piece of well-meant advice: experiment by all means if you can
afford to loose your data; making mistakes is part of the learning
process. Talk ONLY to professionals if the data is valuable of
difficult to replace )

hope that we can be of assistance,
Sandro

Aurora IT Systems AB
http://www.aurora.se
"if we can't recovery your data, nobody can"

 

[vistahatesme]

I really didn't expect to get so many replies here, so again, thanks to all.


Actually, after several boots, I was able to get the drive to live long
enough to make a backup of everything I needed, except the Vista key. The
drive will no longer work, so it is too late. It's just that the price of
Vista outweighed the price of the HDD, so I hated to lose it.

Now my friends who laughed when I purchased and installed Vista will hand me
a Ubuntu dvd and tell me my loss was a good thing. While I would like to
give Ubuntu a shot, I was enjoying Vista before the drive it was on died.

Interesting that there isn't any program to get the product key off of Vista
(if you are not actually running inside the Vista os)

I nabbed the "Ntuser.dat" file off of the failing drive before it went
under, though I am unsure how to extract/decode it, or even if it contains
the product key like it used to in Windows XP. (as I recall) If I can find
the time, I will see if there is a way to extract the key and post up
instructions here as a follow up.

 

[Curt]

Not sure if it would help, but you might try MS customer service, and
see if they can help you. If your copy of windows was genuine, they
might be able to help.

When you validate it, it does record some info about your hardware.

Curt

 

[Hobo]

I really didn't expect to get so many replies here, so again, thanks to all.


Actually, after several boots, I was able to get the drive to live long
enough to make a backup of everything I needed, except the Vista key. The
drive will no longer work, so it is too late. It's just that the price of
Vista outweighed the price of the HDD, so I hated to lose it.

Now my friends who laughed when I purchased and installed Vista will hand me
a Ubuntu dvd and tell me my loss was a good thing. While I would like to
give Ubuntu a shot, I was enjoying Vista before the drive it was on died.

Interesting that there isn't any program to get the product key off of Vista
(if you are not actually running inside the Vista os)

Yeah but, if the drive is dead, then no program is going
to be able to retrieve the data from it anyway.

Depending upon how tech savvy you are, you could look for an
identical drive that works and try swapping out the
electronics board and see if that will bring it back to
life. Of course, if the problem is with the platters or a
read head/arm, then this will not work