I wiped the drive on a seriously compromised Vaio that had dozens of variations of the Bagel virus and nearly would not run. Prior to erasing, I pulled a full image of the drive using Acronis.
As luck would have it, the client could not locate the Sony CDs so I could not restore the factory install. I used one of my own CDs which gives her 30 days to “Activate”. I need the original key instead. From the backup, I extracted the Windows and the Documents and Settings directories to an external hard drive and pointed KeyFinder software at it but it came up empty, No Key Found. Am I barking up the wrong tree?
And while we’re on the subject, why does every inquiry about “where” to find the CD key in the registry go unanswered and a reference to Magic Jelly Bean inserted as a substitute for the answer to the actual question?