working out the version of windows that was on a hard drive

[Simon]

I have the hard drive of an old laptop that is damaged and needs reinstalling. I have the key but don't know the version of windows 7 originally installed. I think I have the code off the rubbed out label by turning it into the light, the hard drive is accessible but the SMART data is not good so i ruled it's time to reinstall with a new hard drive. Is there a record on a hard drive of what version of windows is installed ?

[amyk]

Use registry editor to load the registry hive file from the drive, then look in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion

[DavidDLC]

Use License Crawler, it will give you the version and the serial number of windows, office, or any other installed program.

http://www.klinzmann.name/licensecrawler.htm

David.

[Balaur]

If I remember correctly, the install media for Windows 7 is the same for all consumer versions. The serial will determine, at the install time, what edition will be installed. You still need to select the 32bit vs 64 bit architecture install media though (the serial number works with either).

BTW, don't rely on ISOs downloaded somewhere. Use the official Microsoft service:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-recovery

[cs.dk]

If I remember correctly, the install media for Windows 7 is the same for all consumer versions. The serial will determine, at the install time, what edition will be installed. You still need to select the 32bit vs 64 bit architecture install media though (the serial number works with either).

MS had for some reason removed that feature on never DVD's - But it's quite easy to create a universal Windows 7 DVD; http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/85813-windows-7-universal-installation-disc-create.html

[Simon]

yes i'll need the actual disk at some point. but need to discover what version first and hopefully recover the correct key as I'm not too sure of the rubbed out one I got off the label

[Simon]

The problem here is that I can't boot into this system and the solutions proposed so far I think allow me to find the key and version of the system I'm running where as I'm hosting on my machine a semidud hard drive from another machine.

[Zero999]

It doesn't matter whether it can boot off the hard disk or not. You should be able to boot off a CD or USB stick but the BIOS needs to be appropriately configured to do that.

[Simon]

Well I can plug the actual disk as i have into my computer but because I can't boot from it and the tools listed above find the version and serial of the system they are running on I'm a bit stuck.

[elgonzo]

Well I can plug the actual disk as i have into my computer but because I can't boot from it and the tools listed above find the version and serial of the system they are running on I'm a bit stuck.

License Crawler claims to be able to salvage the serial numbers from an old drive (i.e., a drive other than your system drive). Look at License Crawlers FAQ - it involves basically the same procedure as mentioned already by amyk (loading the registry hive of the old drive temporarily into the registry of the currently running OS).

[Stonent]

Here's how I'd do it.

Connect the drive to another system.
Open regedit on your PC as administrator.
Click on Hkey_local_machine
File > Load hive
Browse on the other drive to windows\system32\config
Select "Software"
Give it a name like "Software2"
Browse to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE2\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion

ProductName will be what it is, pro, enterprise, home etc.

When done, highlight software2 and then File > Unload hive. (important)

(Note you may have to manually browse to regedit.exe, right click on it and select "Run as administrator" for it to work right.

Now the only think left to figure out is if it was OEM or Retail.  If the sticker is on the computer, it is surely OEM, unless they did an upgrade pack to convert from Home to Pro like I did on my laptop, but I have the key for that saved luckily.

If the laptop was one of the non-business brands (Not Dell / HP / Lenovo) that you'd normally buy at the local computer store, it most likely has the Home version of Windows

[Bud]

You can not recover licence key by searching the Registry or rest of the hard drive as far as i know. The ID number that is displayed in System properties is not the installation key.
If the laptop was a brand name one, check if it has a small recovery partition of a few Gb, you should be able to see it with hard drive software tools. Then you could try cloning that partition to a new hard drive and launch system recovery from POST at boot time. That is providing the laptop has this feature.

[Simon]

I'm actually thinking of just buying another version of windows and starting again. there are several partitions as I think I'm not the first to try  a recovery and launching samsungs recovery just puts you into windows recovery that just gives up with a HDD error. it's not my laptop (tiny 7" thing") and I'm fixing it for free so I think I'll go the easy route.

Other problem is I can't copy any data off it as I think it's encripted so maybe need to accss it from linux as I gather linux just bypasses user security etc on NTFS

[Zero999]

What makes you think it's encrypted? If that's the case then Linux won't be able to access it either. The data should look like random numbers.

Have you scanned it for bad sectors?

Obviously you need to be logged on as administrator.

[Simon]

Well not encrypted but locked to the user credentials so if you try and access it from another account it refuses as your system checks that access is "alowed" linux won't give a stuff. I'm not planning on saving the disk just recover any data they may want which does not seem to be any that I can see. There are already a number of "found.1" etc folders so scans have been done by windows recovery but it could not recover the system.