Recover Product Key from Old Hard Disk?

[JaseT]

Hi,

I upgraded my hard disk. Now my Windows 7 Professional product key is "stuck" on my old hard disk (which is now mounted as an external USB drive). I tried the sniffer product key programs to recover my product key (I have legitimately paid for and own the Windows 7 Professional key) but I am getting "do not have permission" error when sniffing old hard disk for product key.
Any ideas on how I might recover the Professional product key I own? (I have tried about 6 sniffer programs but all deny access to external Windows 7 directories)

Thanks for any help.

 

[richc46]

Have you tried Magic Jelly Bean; it has been very succeful in the past.

 

[JaseT]

Yes, I've tried them all. I get the error message "Can't load registry hive from F:\... A required priviledge is not held by the client"

 

[richc46]

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/24232-sharing-permissions.html
Read this it may help.
and/Or use the hidden administrator
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/507-built-administrator-account-enable-disable.html?filter[2]=User Accounts
Try the hidden adminstrator in safe mode, also.

 

[Dwarf]

The easiest thing to do would be to temporarily swap the drives back, run Magic Jelly Bean (or Belarc Advisor) and make a note of the key.

 

[kodi]

The easiest thing to do would be to temporarily swap the drives back, run Magic Jelly Bean (or Belarc Advisor) and make a note of the key.

+1.

 

[JaseT]

Thanks for the advice everyone. A great help. That fixed it.

 

[Dwarf]

You're welcome.

 

[Gmail]

But for me the software didn't help , for windows enterprise/ultimate , What can I do ?

 

[pacinitaly]

The easiest thing to do would be to temporarily swap the drives back, run Magic Jelly Bean (or Belarc Advisor) and make a note of the key.

simple,correct,quick

+1 too

 

[pkninja]

to get key from externally connected HDD

In magical jellybean keyfinder, select 'tools' then 'load hive.' Select the "windows" folder on the externally connected drive.
Then the key and product ID information should display correctly. Select 'tools' and 'unload hive' to switch back to the current OS information.

 

[jaytech]

Right-click Magical Jellybean and Run as Administrator, then it should work.

 

[jtcronin]

REAL FIX to "priviledge is not held by the client"

There are several tools to recover the license keys on damaged systems. Like others I ran into the "priviledge is not held by the client" type of error messages. The problem is this: Windows 7 with its new security does not permit access to the data. No amount of tweaking the security rights of the files and folders involved, no level of user privilege will make the programs work.

My hard disk was damaged to the point it could not boot, no matter what. I had connected it to a Windows 7 system to recover its files, and the software license keys.

The solution to the problem was to copy the folder C:\Windows\System32\Config to a place (a server or shared directory) where I could access it by a Windows XP system. I ran the key recovery software ON THE WINDOWS XP system and instructed it to use the HIVE I had copied. It worked.

Windows 7 has many important improvements. However its digital rights management does get in the way of legitimate work. For this reason it will become harder and harder to recover damaged systems as more of the world moves off of Windows XP.

My thanks to everyone who had contributed to this discussion.

 

[gregrocker]

Backup your product keys like you would a bank account number.