Registry info from a crusty old drive?

October 30, 2009 6:23 PM

Can I get old registry data off a 2nd hard-drive?

I had a program installed on an old computer that won't fire up. I can take the hard drive and install it on a different pc...but I need to go to regedit to get the program's licence key. I go to regedit and it only seems to have programs listed on my main drive. If I move the program from the crusty old drive into the new drive, it doesn't seem to bring the licence info with it.

I just need the license info so that I can get the discount on version two of the software.

Is the license key hiding somewhere that I can find it? The FAQ of the software says I would normally be able to find it here: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Ross Bencina\AudioMulch\1.0\Registered User

posted by ian1977 to computers & internet (3 comments total)

Use regedit from the command line (/L and /R are your friends) to extract the key you need.

Syntax is: regedit [/L:system] [/R:user] /E filename [regpath]

Search around for more info. As always, don't forget to back up your registry first!
posted by shinybeast at 7:00 PM on October 30, 2009

You should be able to use regedit, included with windows, to load the HKEY_CURRENT_USER file from the old drive. You'll want to use the Open Hive command to load this file:

D:\Documents and Settings\\ntuser.dat.

This assumes the old drive is now called D:
posted by mge at 7:02 PM on October 30, 2009

What the FAQ means is that the license key is stored in your user profile part of the registry on the old drive. Follow these instructions and you will find it.

Install the old drive in a new PC, it should come up as either the D: or E: drive. We'll say it's D: for the sake of the rest of the post.

Click Start...Run and type regedt32 in the box. Click OK. Click ONCE on the left hand column HKEY_USERS, and click the + next to it. The + will turn into a - and you will see all the user profiles on the new PC.

Now you need to load your user profile off the old drive. Click File...Load Hive. (If this is grayed out you need to make sure that HKEY_USERS is hilighted before going on). Select D:\Documents and Settings\ian1977\ntuser.dat. (Of course, replace ian1977 with whatever your login name was on the old PC - it shouldn't be too hard to find).

You will get a box which asks you for a key name. Just enter "old" (without the quote marks). Click OK.

Now, underneath HKEY_USERS, you will see your old user profile, which will be in the folder called "old". Click the + next to old, and you will see a whole heap of folders. You want "Software". Click the plus next to "Software", you will find "Ross Bencina", and...well you get the idea. Your licence key will eventually appear in the right hand column somewhere.

Once you've copied it down, click on "old" once more, and click File...Unload Hive.
posted by humpy at 2:36 AM on October 31, 2009