MCR7

Hey submix8, you were right about one thing, I am a technician. 50%'s not bad. :) BTW - I like your JusTus pic, reminds me of my old SnarkUS alias

Awesome - Your the man, Iceman, thank you so much for taking the time to explain that as I have been very frustrated trying to figure it out. My lack of registry experience is now cut in half.

Hey IcemanND, if the drive is external, say E:, what path do i use and what field do I enter it in? Is the registry all one file that i can search? What's it called? Sorry for the novice questions, just new to registry stuff.

Thank you for the help. I am familiar with the method you described as I've been trying it for two days. The location you mentioned in the hint would be great if I was looking for the key on the boot drive, but I'm looking for the key on the non-bootable drive. I've been told the file to use as the hive is C:\Documents and Settings\(User Name)\ntuser.dat but I cannot find where the DigitalProductID is in the newly created hive.

I am a computer tech who runs into systems that will not boot normally or into safe mode after a new mother board install and I need to re-install windows with the customers Product Key from the unbootable system. I have tried everything I can find on the net to extract the key with no avail. Can someone please tell me a method that will work. Marc Marc's Computer Repair