recovering windows product key

[goldringers]

The missus got given a laptop at work but the hard drives knackered. When you turn it on you get a dos hardware error message and it won't boot either normal or in safe mode.

I checked it with hirens and the a load of errors on the HD. I can get at files using hirens so so all I need is recover the product key it uses. What's the best way ?, is there something on hirens that can do this ?

Thanks

[mobisat]

New hdd. What OS is it running?

 

If it it is Win10 you won't need key if you replace the hdd as it will auto activate as same mobo etc.

[Snuffs99]

If the laptop had 8 or 10 pre-installed then you can use something like RWEverything to retrieve the key from the BIOS, used it a few times myself with success although tbvfh its quicker to simply reinstall and use daz loader for Win 7 or M$toolkit for 8-10.

 

Thing you have to remember is even if you retrieve the key you'll need to install the exact same version of windows on the new HDD that was on the older one in order for the key to work ....home,premium, pro etc, you'll probably also need an OEM windows rather than retail etc....far simpler to start fresh IMHO.

[goldringers]

Its a dell inspiron n5050 running Windows 7 home premium. I'm going to keep with windows 7

[goldringers]

I'm still having problems, I only have Hirens 15.1 at hand right now. So I boot the disc and I tried the product key progs within Hirens but don't find the windows 7 key. I can transfer any file from the knackered hard drive to a USB stick while using Hiren's in mini XP mode. I was thinking if I transferred the folder holding the product key to a stick I could use produkey.exe in my pc to find it but I don't know which folder its kept in.

Which is the best way to retrieve the windows 7 product key from a non booting hard drive ?, Like I said, I have access to the knackered hard drive fling system with Hirens cd and I can view the windows 7 folders/files

[Snuffs99]

Seriously mate you seem a little obsessed with finding that key but by the time you've done all that you could reinstall win 7 and have done with it. The key will be stored in the registry somewhere so its not exactly a file you can simply transfer.

 

Reinstall Win 7 on your new drive without a key and it'll activate for 30 days, then just use Daz loader to active fully.....job done.

[goldringers]

Seriously mate you seem a little obsessed with finding that key  

 

When I say the wife got given, they said to her fix it ,they'll pay me (well her) to get it sorted, then keep hold of it which is how longs a piece of string but if they wanted back then so be it hence the craving obsession to find the key

 

I see there's Produkey and tonnes of others so I thought if I dropped the knackered hd into a usb caddie I could point the programs at it. The hd's coming out anyway

[Clownfish]

You could try https://www.magicaljellybean.com/ it grabbed my key when I misplaced my original Win 7 Ultimate.

That was from a working install though

[goldringers]

Thanks for that but I've given up . I have tried about 6-7 programs booting via Hirens cd with no success so I will class this one as a dead as a fookin door nail hard drive and give it some hammertime the tw*t

[Snuffs99]

Programs like jellybean, belarc, aida64 etc can all retrieve windows keys but only retrieve from the current active set registry so unless you can boot into windows (which you can't on the fooked HDD) they are of no use i'm affraid.

 

And you say produkey doesn't help? just tried it on my system with 2 separate windows drives (win 7 and 10) and both are picked up no probs.....but my drives are not fooked.

 

Run Hirens, choose minixp, once desktop loaded try produkey (Passwords/Keys --> Product Keys --> ProduKey).

When Produkey loads press F9 to open the Select Source window.

Click on the second option down “Load the product keys of external Windows installations from all disks currently plugged to your computer” and then click OK.

 

Failign that you could try Lazesoft Recover My Password Home Edition but i've never used that to comment one way or another.

[goldringers]

thanks snuffs , I've given it a go and I couldn't get it so daz loader it is. thanks for the help

[Snuffs99]

Sorry it didn't work tbh mate , (silly thought but you have still got the damaged HDD in the laptop when runnign hirens and not in a caddie i assume).

 

There should be no worries with daz loader other than if they ever try to upgrade to win 10 while its still free, can still do win 7 updates etc no probs on the loader but for win 10 you'd need the toolkit if the upgrade fails....again i always just go the clean install and have done route, USB installs are fast as fook on some devices compares to CD/DVD.

 

Good luck.

 

Re:

 

Snuffs

[goldringers]

Which loader do you use for windows 7 snuffs ?

[Snuffs99]

daz loader 2.2.1 is what i used to use but afaik the MStoolkit activates win 7 too.

 

Loader 2.2.1

 

https://mega.nz/#!bwQwnSyT!8tG0Sx0Sqe3DgKFJR_zf8Bs4YftOtTLA95gLVYuDUXk

 

Toolkit 2.6.0

 

https://mega.nz/#!m941UbDJ!Zde2V7xzUy8Q-YRoJDpGJLHPZFmdTWueHjOi724xPeg

 

 

Re:

 

Snuffs

[Fon]

+1 for Daz loader

 

Got me out of trouble loads of times.

 

Fon

[goldringers]

+2 snuffs thanks works a treat

[goldringers]

Forgot to ask, can you officially update Windows 7 via Microsoft after using Daz's Loader ?

[philmein]

Yes you can

[goldringers]

Its just I got an error 7008000E when updating

[Snuffs99]

Yeah not the loader that mate, more a corrupt windows update.

 

Try and reset windows update.

 

Extract then run this script as administrator (rt click run as admin)

 

http://media.askvg.com/downloads/2015/03/Batch_File_to_Reset_Windows_Update.zip

 

Once its run restart and with any luck windows update will work again.

 

 

 

Re:

 

Snuffs

[goldringers]

cheers , ,will try later , thanks