eh.jay

Ok, so this is my problem. I have a HDD that I'm trying to extract the CD-key out of. It's hooked up to my computer on the secondary slave location running as a slave drive. There's a copy of windows xp installed on this drive and I need to extract the CD-key from it somehow so I can resinstall the OS on a new HDD, but I'm unsure of how to go about this. The only quark is that the HDD is unrepairable to a point of where I can't boot it on its own, I can only hook it up as a slave drive and view it through my installation of XP (so I can still recover files but that's about it).

Magic Jellybean and all that won't work because it keeps displaying my cd-key information (well obviously because I'm running MY xp install). Any help?

Thanks.

The Duke

You need to set that drive up to BOOT the OS to get the info!

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eh.jay

That's the problem. Something is wrong with the drive and it won't boot, gives the blue screen of death right before loading windows xp, but I can view the HD as a secondary

eh.jay

for future reference, I followed these instructions:

1. Created a Bart PE iso, nothing extra added, just used defaults.
2. Booted dead system from PE CD.
3. Downloaded LoadHive from http://www.matcode.com/codes.htm and put it on a floppy.
4. Ran it from the floppy in PE, loaded C:\WINDOWS\System32\Config\software ... it mounted the hive as SOFTWARE_00.
5. Ran regedit, found the SOFTWARE_00 subkey and navigated to CurrentVerion, exported that subkey to the floppy.
6. I moved to a working XP machine, backed up my DigitalProductId key. I edited the reg file from the floppy to only contain the DigitalProductId key.
7. I merged the DigitalProductId key from the floppy, ran Keyfinder (Magic Jellybean Software) and it pulled the key !
8. I merged the backup I made and ran it again, and sure enough it had my original key.

Instructions where taken from http://www.experts-exchange.com/Oper..._21236913.html, poster was DVation191.

-eh.jay

Lurch_Chaos

UH,

While I salute you creative solution to your own problem. I must make one comment. The solution you have provided can be seen as a way to circumnavigate the registration proccess for Microsoft products. In that a key may be recoverd from any drive in this mannor there for allowing a un licenced user to extract the key from a licenced system and duplicate it.

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Shouldn't there be a shorter word for "monosyllabic"?

PROBN4LYFE

Good job figuring it out...I used my Ultimate Boot CD to save my A$$ all the time...durn registry!!!!

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eh.jay

Although this may be true, my intentions are not for illegal purposes. I'm recovering a legitimate key which I fully own the rights too.

I'm not responsible for anyone else who uses this method for malicious purposes. If a mod feels this thread is inappropriate, then please delete at will.

-eh.jay