recover COA from machine that keeps rebooting?

[matanzas]

A customer brought a tower to me that is in a boot loop. It cannot boot into safe mode hanging for a moment at mup.sys and then rebooting. Booting into normal startup flashes a BSOD for an instant and then reboots.
XP was installed by "someone in town that did it on the side but has moved away". She understood it to be a valid copy but doesn't have a COA or the install disk (am I suspicious...?). I am thinking that if I had the key I could reinstall XP and use it again.

Is there a way to view the install key used when the OS was first installed by pulling the HDD and connecting it to my machine?

If anyone can give me a heads up on the rebooting thing I would appreciate it as well.

TIA

 

[Frank4d]

You can use Magical Jellybean Keyfinder to get the key if you can get Windows to run. You'll also need the Product ID to determine whether it is OEM, full, or upgrade.

But getting it to run in your machine may be problematic due to hardware differences. You would want to remove your HD and replace it with hers, and hope that it boots in safe mode.

 

[bcastner]

Nirsoft Produkey, freeware.

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/product_cd_key_viewer.html

Two options make this a better choice than Magical Jelly Bean:

/windir [Windows Directory] Load product key information from another operating system on the same computer. The [Windows Directory] specifies the base folder of Windows installation, for example: c:\windows, c:\winnt
This feature is only supported on Windows 2000/XP.

/regfile [Software Registry File] Load product key information from another operating system on the same computer. The [Software Registry File] specifies the software registry file usually located under c:\windows\system32\config
This feature is only supported on Windows 2000/XP.

In other words you could temporarily create a parallel installation of XP to read the original installation product key.

In all probablility, however, if you can run Recovery Console on the affected machine, and then do a CHKDSK /r the rebooting will stop. Then you can use ProduKey directly.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=314058

http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...port/kb/articles/q307/6/54.asp&NoWebContent=1

For reference, Magical Jelly Bean:

http://www.magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder.shtml

 

[matanzas]

I cannot run the install cd. I get an internal error has occurred. Could not find a place for the swap file.

I cannot access the contents of the drive from a dos prompt, there are no valid drives after C when I start with a W98 startup floppy.

I am thinking that the hdd wont work unless it's reformatted (if ever at all) at which point her data is burnt toast.

Any other suggstions one could pass along?

Thanks

 

[tlcscousin]

BartPe cd with keyfinder and if it allows reading the c drive it should allow you to copy the files across the network.

 

[matanzas]

I cannot read the c drive

 

[bcastner]

Win98 cannot "see" drives formatted NTFS.

Quoting from above:

In all probablility, however, if you can run Recovery Console on the affected machine, and then do a CHKDSK /r the rebooting will stop.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=314058

http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...port/kb/articles/q307/6/54.asp&NoWebContent=1

What happens when you try to run Recovery Console?

 

[matanzas]

Windows CD-ROM to start your computer. At the "Welcome to Setup" screen, press F10 or press 'R" to repair"

I cannot get to the Welcome to Setup screen.

The last message was that Setup was unabel to locate a drive with the required amount of free space


The hdd will not boot into safe mode

 

[bcastner]

Did you happen to fill up Drive C?
How much free space was available?

 

[matanzas]

Actutally, I don't really know as it was brought to me in a looping boot state. I removed the hdd from te tower and attempted to view it on my computer from a IDE USB box. I suspect that it has enough space as it is 40 gig and she only uses it for her business accounting software.

 

[linney]

If this is an SP2 install then Safe Mode will have an option to turn off Automatic Restarts, this allows you to record an error message while it is on the screen.

Even if it doesn't the use of a digital camera may come to the rescue.

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