Doh! I was “helping” my brother in law with his antiquated laptop by clearing the spy ware off of it. I apparently checked the wrong box with HijackThis and now I cannot get back into Windows. When the laptop is rebooted the windows setup screen appears asking for a user name/company, then license agreement, and finally the Windows 98 Product key (from the CD case).
No one has the product key. This computer is ancient and has been passed through three separate owners (all in the family - given, not sold) since the original owner bought it from Dell. The original owner is looking for the Windows CD or any documentation, but it is a long shot as it was 3 computers ago for her. The other owners never had any of the documentation.
The computer is truly antiquated (IMHO) but is the only one they have. The computer is a Dell Inspiron 5000 laptop running Windows 98. Other than that I do not know what the specs are. HijackThis identified a lot of crap that I was taking off and I obviously checked something I shouldn’t have. All the backup information/files for Hijack this are in a folder on the desktop (lot of good it does).
Here are my questions:
What can I do to at least get the vital information off of it.
Can I get the computer running back on windows 98 without getting the product key?
If 2 is no, where can I get the (a) product key?
I have a free (meaning not being used) copy of Win2k Pro that I could use to upgrade this machine. I have not tried anything with it yet as I hope that the original owner comes up with the CD or that some brilliant doper will help me. Several concerns: I do not know if there is enough disk space for 2k… I do not know if I can actually upgrade without wiping the disk… I do not know if the Inspiron 5000 can run 2000 without exploding (this computer is ancient). And most importantly, I am worried about doing more damage and making it harder to recover their vital information.
Does anybody have any general advice regarding this upgrade (Oh, I also have a free, again - not being used, version of XP home I can install…)?
Question 1) What can I do to at least get the vital information off of it.
Answer: Troublesome for guaranteed method is to remove the harddrive, mount it as a secondary harddrive into another laptop. After rebooting the other laptop, the contents of the original harddrive will show up under Windows Explorer. From there you can copy, manipulate any of the data on that drive as you want.
Question 2) Can I get the computer running back on windows 98 without getting the product key?
Answer: As far as I know, Nope. Depending on the version release that is installed on that laptop, you can try to get a product key for it which will unlock it. Call Dell, they can probably help. If not there are tons of places on the net where a product key can be found. *I’m not promoting piracy!
Question 3) If 2 is no, where can I get the (a) product key?
Answer: See above.
Question 4) I have a free (meaning not being used) copy of Win2k Pro that I could use to upgrade this machine. I have not tried anything with it yet as I hope that the original owner comes up with the CD or that some brilliant doper will help me. Several concerns: I do not know if there is enough disk space for 2k… I do not know if I can actually upgrade without wiping the disk… I do not know if the Inspiron 5000 can run 2000 without exploding (this computer is ancient). And most importantly, I am worried about doing more damage and making it harder to recover their vital information.
Answer: If I’m not mistaken, the Inspiron 5000 runs on a PIII 600Mhz processor with 12 GB harddrive. This configuration is capable enough for Win2K pro. Also, upgrading to Win2K pro will not wip your data. *unless your data is stored under a windows system folder, then it may get replaced or deleted. The best way to retrieve your data is to use the method described in Answer 1.
Thanks pace! Regarding your answer to my first questions: I have done this before with desktop systems (in fact I have a drawer full of hard drives from old computers I use as an archive) but I have never done it with a laptop… I can take the hard drive from this Dell and drop it in my HP laptop? Great.
Regarding the Product Key: I found this on the Microsoft website (link):
So the key should be in the machine (or is this what I wiped out with HijackThis?). If it is still in the registry is there any way I can get to it with a boot disk created using one of my XP machines?
I’m not sure if this will work: You can copy reg.exe from %windir%\system32 onto the bootdisk. Then boot from it on the laptop and type reg query HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\MIcrosoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ProductKey.
Yes, you can take the harddrive from the dell and pop it on your HP, just make sure you pop it in to a secondary harddrive bay and not replace your HP original. Get what I mean?
There are several softwares available that let you access the registry information or repair the registry however, you still need to mount the drive in another PC/Laptop beforehand.
Once you mount the harddrive from the dell into your HP, you can then use Regedit to read the information from the Windows/System32 directory. Here is a link that may be more useful, however it pertains to Win2K and not Win98.
Best bet is to:
Mount HD and copy important data to different location on different drive.
Put the HD back in the dell and install Win2K Pro. I am sure that “UPGRADING” and not “INSTALL NEW” will not wipe your data.
Forgot to mention that the boot disk or recovery disk that you make using WIn2K or XP will not work on the machine running Win98. You can try it but I’m pretty sure it’s not going to work.
Since the registry search for the key has been mentioned, I’ll say just FYI that you won’t be able to connect a laptop drive to another laptop (laptops only have 1 HD connector) or to your home PC either without some work (different IDE interface form factor & pinset).
You can though get adapters to convert from the smaller connector type for cheaper than I had expected, should this be required. Yet another alternative would be booting some sort of live OS from the CD drive, mounting the HD and transferring data that way.
If you happen to find a Win98 CD, you can install Win98 overtop of itself (anybody actually using their Win9x system usually had to do that at least once a year to keep it stable). All your data would be fine, though IIRC sometimes your monitor settings would be reset to default, etc.
