how to get pc ip address from a removed hdd 1

[garymaule]

how to get pc's ip address from a removed hdd

guys does anyone know if it is possible to get an ip address from a hdd which has been removed from the original pc

were doing rollouts at different locations just now and sometimes myself and the other lads forget to take a note of the old pc ip address and just assume it has had dhcp like the other locations we visit and we get caught out and need to put the old pc@s hdd back into the machine and connect it all back up

anyone thats done rollouts will tell how much time this costs

guys were removing the old hdd's and when the new pc goes in we then connect the old hdd to a usb2/sata/ide data transfer thingy which we use to transfer over all the old data

at this point we have the ability to browse the old pc hdd

the question i have guys is that is there any log file or anything on the old pc hdd that would reveal what ip address ,gateway,dns,wins etc that it used to have

another instance today was we had to swap a pc out but could not log onto it and could not reset the password because the location we were at had a terrible low speed connection and the helpdesk phone just kept ringing out
so what i had to do was get settings from another pc nearby and just keep pinging a ip address close to that one to make sure it was not in use and use that

any help appreciated

gary

 

[drjohnbullas]

best to try and find connection logs on the disk drive that might be generated on connections.... why not list the *.log files and look for anything there...

now i have the advantage of knowing my local IP not my WAN IP so searching for that confirmed that logfiles generated by mcafee stored it and a TV station file downloaders log too..

My WAN IP ( what i connect to the internet over ) appeared in the same TV company program log

If you are trying to find an IP address on a LAN you administer you should at least have 50% of the IP address to start your search, I presume you are using fixed IPs - is there not a log from the network you could interrogate?

 

[LawnBoy]

Somebody somewhere should have a list of the fixed IPs you're using. How else would you know what address to give a new device?

--
The stagehand's axiom: "Never lift what you can drag, never drag what you can roll, never roll what you can leave.

 

[wcburton]

Somebody somewhere should have a list of the fixed IPs you're using.

...another instance today was we had to swap a pc out but could not log onto it and could not reset the password because the location we were at had a terrible low speed connection and the helpdesk phone just kept ringing out...

You should be able to use standard regedit, choose the "Load Hive" menu option and browse to the needed registry file (in this case SYSTEM in windows\system32\config). Once loaded, you can look in the registry at this key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces
and browse through the listed interfaces to find the one that has the settings you need.

 

[garymaule]

many thanks folks for the replies and taking time out to do this its appreciated

great forum

wcburton

give this a try on monday

thanks again guys


Gary

 

[garymaule]

tried the WCBURTON method above which worked a treat

many thanks guys for the responses

all the best

gary

 

[goombawaho]

I'll echo what lawnboy said above: "Somebody somewhere should have a list of the fixed IPs you're using. How else would you know what address to give a new device?"

But, if you guys have more than just a few computers on your network (non-servers/routers) then you are doing something crazy on your network. In the end, you will have lots of headaches with static IP address devices. If you need that, you should look into putting them into a router or other DHCP device that will always give the same IP to a given MAC address. Of course, if you are changing out the PC, then you have the same problem.

Bottom line - if it's only a few devices, then there should be a list maintained in only one place and updated religiously so that everyone is on the same page.