recover win key with dead mother board

[acs]

Ok we all have a little program to recover a windows key from a dead PC using a Boot cd or similar.
But how do you recover the key from the hard drive when the mother board is dead ?

I need to replace the MB of a pc but would like to recover the windows and office keys from the HD of the dead machine before i reinstall windows following the MB change ( it is not an exact match MB)

I have used a USB cable to browse the HD from a good PC and tried a few recovery programs but they only get the local keys not the ones of the remote HD.

Any ideas ?

 

[stevenamills]

Doesn't UBCDWin have a key recovery program?

 

[Azz]

Take the HD out and put it in a working computer, then use a key reader that you can point to the location of the new hd.

 

[acs]

Hi Azz, thats what i have been trying but none of the key readers I can find is "pointable" they all just seem to read the working HDD not one on a USB cable.
Perhaps I should just remove HDD from working pc and replace with this HDD then boot from CD. That might work. Cheers

 

[JRDtechnet]

You probably checked already but just in case did you check the computer for a COA sticker every computer that has Windows will have one unless its a custom/home built and the person neglected to apply the sticker.

 

[rsavoia]

Ok we all have a little program to recover a windows key from a dead PC using a Boot cd or similar.
But how do you recover the key from the hard drive when the mother board is dead ?

I need to replace the MB of a pc but would like to recover the windows and office keys from the HD of the dead machine before i reinstall windows following the MB change ( it is not an exact match MB)

I have used a USB cable to browse the HD from a good PC and tried a few recovery programs but they only get the local keys not the ones of the remote HD.

Any ideas ?

If this is an OEM PC you shouldn't need to do this if it has a valid COA and Key to begin with. If it is a white box it should still have the COA if it's a legal copy. If not, it probably isn't legal unless they installed a retail copy. I would check with the owner of the PC first and get the history on this PC before I go to all the trouble of recovering the key.

 

[Jory]

I was just reading something the other day that was similar to this. I forget the exact details, but if I'm not mistaken they said jellybean keyfinder had an option to do this, but it was in the menu. You might want to look through all the menus and see if you can find it.

It was more than likely a post here so chances are someone will be along to correct me with a link to the topic if I'm wrong.

 

[RonWood]

Ok we all have a little program to recover a windows key from a dead PC using a Boot cd or similar.
But how do you recover the key from the hard drive when the mother board is dead ?

I need to replace the MB of a pc but would like to recover the windows and office keys from the HD of the dead machine before i reinstall windows following the MB change ( it is not an exact match MB)

I have used a USB cable to browse the HD from a good PC and tried a few recovery programs but they only get the local keys not the ones of the remote HD.

Any ideas ?

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