Getting XP key off rig after old mobo died?

[JustStarting]

My DFI NF4 Ultra SLI-DR died. No biggie except I lost the activation key when I moved a few years ago.

Can I get the key off the old hdd if I put it in another rig and run keyfinder on that hdd (if thats possible)? Any other ways to get the key off a hdd when the mobo died besides finding anothe like mobo?

 

[RebateMonger]

Supposedly http://magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder is able to read Keys from non-bootable Windows installations.

 

[AstroGuardian]

you can use other mobos. If it fails to boot, safe mode has pretty high chance to work. The try restarting in normal mode. It has better chances to boot than the first try

 

[AstroGuardian]

My DFI NF4 Ultra SLI-DR died. No biggie except I lost the activation key when I moved a few years ago.

Can I get the key off the old hdd if I put it in another rig and run keyfinder on that hdd (if thats possible)? Any other ways to get the key off a hdd when the mobo died besides finding anothe like mobo?

Off topic. I was looking @ your rig. Why the hell did you put 3x320gb Samsung's in RAID5?

 

[CU]

How can http://magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder do this. I have this same problem. But I cannot find where in keyfinder to tell it to point to a certain drive. It always just reads my current windows install.

 

[RebateMonger]

How can http://magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder do this. I have this same problem. But I cannot find where in keyfinder to tell it to point to a certain drive. It always just reads my current windows install.

I've never used it, but instructions in the Support Forum for Magical Jelly Bean say:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Run keyfinder and select Tools\Load Hive...
Browse to your Windows folder on the HD you want to load the hive from

All the keys you are looking for are stored in the 'Software' or 'Software.sav' and not in any other registry file in the \System32\Config folder.

Try opening the 'Software.sav' file.

 

[JustStarting]

Off topic. I was looking @ your rig. Why the hell did you put 3x320gb Samsung's in RAID5?

it's been extremely reliable and if I lose one disk I have a spare standing by.... just plug it in and it rebuilds itself in a few hours. they are all single platter drives which are recommended for raid arrays. Besides- I have all my data backed up on a spare hdd in my rig thats not on the array.

if you lose one disk in a raid 1 or raid 0 you are totally hosed on your array- not so with a 3 disk raid 5. i don't want speed- i want reliability on my data.

do what you like, and i'll do what i like........

 

[JackMDS]

Yeah, with Jelly Bean you use the Load Hive, point to the Windows directory of the other HD and press Ok

.

 

[JustStarting]

Yeah, with Jelly Bean you use the Load Hive, point to the Windows directory of the other HD and press Ok

.

Thanks Jack. I'll give it a go.

 

[AstroGuardian]

it's been extremely reliable and if I lose one disk I have a spare standing by.... just plug it in and it rebuilds itself in a few hours. they are all single platter drives which are recommended for raid arrays. Besides- I have all my data backed up on a spare hdd in my rig thats not on the array.

if you lose one disk in a raid 1 or raid 0 you are totally hosed on your array- not so with a 3 disk raid 5. i don't want speed- i want reliability on my data.

do what you like, and i'll do what i like........

Dude i didn't say i have anything against you RAID5. It was just a question from performance side of view 🙂

I agree about the data redundancy and the single platter drive argument. But three disks in RAID5 suck in performance. They are slower than a single drive. Good thing you have your data backed up on another drive. Cause if your partition fail or data is corrupted, the RAID is no good to you.

Thumbs up

 

[JustStarting]

I don't know much on how to compare my raid 5 performance to other set-ups, but i'm pretty pleased with its performance for what i use my rig for.

reliability??? i've had this rig on 24/7 for over 2 years except during my move to FL for about a week. i can't prevent the possibility of data corruption or a partition crapping out on me, but i can keep limping along if ONE drive fails on me till i plug another one in (which has happened once). it takes about 6-8 hours to rebuild the array, but i can still use the rig. i have my E8500 oc'd to 4ghz 24/7 as well- on water 😉

just did a hdtach run..... not an expert on reading this, but i compared it to a few raid 0 rigs and i'm ok with it. access time sucks compared to a raid 0, but i already knew that. otherwise it doesn't seem too bad??

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh84/coreydelong/Computer/hdtach.jpg