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7.0

Recovery following hard-drive crash and loss of XP activation key

Asked by mmisero in Microsoft Operating Systems, Windows XP Operating System, Microsoft Windows Operating Systems

Tags: activation, xp, crashing, drive, key

I have been helping my nephew with a troubled laptop. The laptop has an XP pro installation on it. I went through many different things, but the long and short of it was that the hard drive was trashed, even Spinwrite couldn't resurrect it. (Getting eminent SMART failure messages.) I have located a compatible hard drive as a replacement, trouble is this, he says he doesn't have the installation disks and in fact says that at one point he was prompted that the machine had a pirated copy which he made legit by paying over Microsoft's site. When questioned about whether he has the activation information, etc, he said he doesn't. He is not the most computer savvy, so I am trusting that this information is correct. So the trouble I am faced with is short of buying another copy of XP is there any way to find out what his installation/activation information is? (I can still get some access to the old HD using Bart's PE.) He is a student and doesn't have a huge amount of money so I don't want to cost him the cost of another windows XP copy if I can help it. And before anyone suggests Ubuntu or Knoppix aren't good solutions for him.

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20091118-EE-VQP-93

Recovery following hard-drive crash and loss of XP activation key

Asked by mmisero in Microsoft Operating Systems, Windows XP Operating System, Microsoft Windows Operating Systems

Tags: activation, xp, crashing, drive, key

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