Product Key

B

Buffalo

How do you get the product key off the hard drive that contains XP Home?
A friend of mine has a Compaq Desktop with XP Home and he made the six Restore
(?) CD's when he first got it.
It will not reboot and not go back to a previous recovery point. He tried to use
the CDs to Restore it. It will go through the first CD and then tell him to
reboot, but when he reboots, it says 'invalid system disk'.
I gave him an old tower that had XP on it and he put his HDD into it as a
Primary Slave and he can see his old HDD as a F and a G drive, but says it
doesn't access it or display it properly.
Anyhow, I would like to know how he can retrieve his XP product key off his
messed up HDD?
Thanks for any help or ideas.
Buffalo
PS: I had him dl, update, and run Avast! (free) on the good HDD and have it
check the old HDD (it hasn't finished yet).
I also had him run a diagnostic check on his old HDD with the mfg's diagnostic
software and it came out OK.
 
L

Leythos

Attached.

I PROMISE, this is not a virus.

I just checked it.
Click to expand...

That's like saying "The check is in the mail", "Honest Dad, I don't know
how that Dent got in the car", "If you let me borrow the car I'll put
gas in it".....

If you can't post a link to a download site (reputable) for the file in
question, then you should not be providing it. Posting files in this
group is just plain stupid, and doing it twice calls your ethics into
question.

Only download software you can validate as uncompromised - in the case
of non-vendor site you have no guarantee that the files are unmodified
or uncompromised. Anyone providing a link to a non-vendors site with a
direct download should not be trusted, the vendors sites are the safest
place to download their application.

No person of sound mind would download files from a hack site that
requires a password to access the unknown files when they are available
directly from the vendors.

Always remember - only download files from Trusted Sites.
 
B

Bruce Chambers

Buffalo said:
How do you get the product key off the hard drive that contains XP Home?
Click to expand...



The Windows 25-character Product Key (required to perform the
installation) is stored on the CD packaging on a bright orange sticker
that says "Do not lose this number." It is not on the installation CD
in any way, shape, or form. If it was an OEM (factory installed)
license, it's stored on a label that the PC manufacturer affixed to
the exterior of the PC case, or on the bottom of a laptop.

To recover a lost Product Key:

If your system still runs, you should be able to use Belarc
Advisor from http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html to find the
Product Key. (If you have a factory-installed OEM license, and
haven't since reinstalled the OS, the revealed Product Key is probably
of the drive image used at the factory and not your specific Product
Key; therefore, it probably cannot be -- and definitely should not
be -- used for a re-installation.)

If it was a retail license and you have proof of purchase:

How to Replace Lost, Broken, or Missing Microsoft Software or Hardware
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;326246

If it was an OEM license, you should contact the computer's
manufacturer; although very few manufacturers/vendors keep records of
the Product Keys they've sold, it's worth a try before you have to buy
a new license.


A friend of mine has a Compaq Desktop with XP Home and he made the six Restore
(?) CD's when he first got it.
It will not reboot and not go back to a previous recovery point. He tried to use
the CDs to Restore it. It will go through the first CD and then tell him to
reboot, but when he reboots, it says 'invalid system disk'.
Click to expand...


He needs to contact Compaq's Technical Support at this point, as their
designed recovery method has failed.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
both at once. - RAH
 
B

Bruce Chambers

Talahasee said:
Attached.

I PROMISE, this is not a virus.

I just checked it.
Click to expand...


Funny, that's not what AVAST has to say about it.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
both at once. - RAH
 
K

Ken Blake, MVP

Talahasee said:
see download.

I PROMISE you it's not a virus. I just checked it myself,
and I have used it MULTIPLE times!
Click to expand...


I have no reason to suspect you of anything, and what you say above is very
likely true. Nevertheless, we live in a crazy world, and someone would have
to be extremely foolhardy to download and run an executable file sent to
them by a stranger on a newsgroup.

I recommend to Buffalo, and to everyone else here, that you *never* download
and run executable file attachments here, no matter *who* they come from.
Even if they appear to come from someone you trust, not all messages come
from the person you think they do.
 
B

Buffalo

{snip}
I recommend to Buffalo, and to everyone else here, that you *never* download
and run executable file attachments here, no matter *who* they come from.
Even if they appear to come from someone you trust, not all messages come
from the person you think they do.
Click to expand...

Very good advice.
Do you have any idea why he cannot use the six CDs he created (when he first
acquired the PC) to reinstall or repair his Windows XP Home OS? Perhaps it was
virus caused.
He ran the HDD's mfg diagnostic disc and it showed no problem with the HDD.
(It's a WD).
The PC he bought at WalMart was a Compaq and it was a display model. It did not
come with any CDs.
It was running just fine for over a year.

PS:I had him dl , update and run an on-demand scan by Kaspersky and it found
about 15 more items than Avast! and deleted them.
Thanks
 
F

Frazer Jolly Goodfellow

How do you get the product key off the hard drive that contains
XP Home? A friend of mine has a Compaq Desktop with XP Home and
he made the six Restore (?) CD's when he first got it.
It will not reboot and not go back to a previous recovery point.
He tried to use the CDs to Restore it. It will go through the
first CD and then tell him to reboot, but when he reboots, it
says 'invalid system disk'. I gave him an old tower that had XP
on it and he put his HDD into it as a Primary Slave and he can
see his old HDD as a F and a G drive, but says it doesn't access
it or display it properly. Anyhow, I would like to know how he
can retrieve his XP product key off his messed up HDD?
Thanks for any help or ideas.
Buffalo
PS: I had him dl, update, and run Avast! (free) on the good HDD
and have it check the old HDD (it hasn't finished yet).
I also had him run a diagnostic check on his old HDD with the
mfg's diagnostic software and it came out OK.
Click to expand...
The software tools recommended to you thus far will only work if
the disk is bootable so won't work in this case.

With the disk mounted as a data drive you could try Produkey:
<http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/product_cd_key_viewer.html>
The readme file tells you how to retrieve a key from a disk mounted
as a data drive.

However, you've also reported that the disk isn't accessible
properly even as a data drive. So I suspect the drive is itself
either faulty (unlikely since diagnostics report it is OK) or so
badly corrupted it cannot be recognised by Windows. In which case
that could also account for why the Compaq recovery process fails
to complete.

Suggest that you:

o - Use disk manager on tower PC to delete and recreate the
partition(s) on the suspect drive. If there is a small (2GB-ish)
hidden partition, leave that alone, just in case...

o - Format the new partition(s) with NTFS.

o - Transfer the drive back to the original CPQ PC

o - Retry the recovery process

o - When completed, recover the users' data files from the most
recent backups

NB: This procedure will delete all user data and settings.
 

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