StarDestroyer.Net BBS

About three weeks ago, my laptop decided that it didn't like seeing my hard drive anymore. Naturally this puts me into a bit of a bind, because now I have no way to access license keys that would cost me about a thousand dollars to replace, most notably among them being my Windows 8 key .

I was wondering if there was any hope of recovering these software keys or if I'd be better off just saying fuck it all, copying files I want to keep to an alternative location and nuking the drive. Any help would be appreciated.

You'll need something like this USB to Serial
I use things like this at work all the time. It lets you take the hardrive out of your laptop or desktop computer, hook it up externally (That kit comes with a power supply for 1 drive as well) and then externally scan it with a key finder or something like Belarc to pull a copy of all of your keys off the drive.

The only problem is if the laptop HD has some odd proprietary connector which many companies do.

Already have a hookup, though upon reflection I didn't state my question very well. My dilemma is that I would very much like to be able to deactivate these keys so that I can use them on another machine, such as Windows 8, given its rather bothersome requirement for a unique key for each and every installation.

P.S. The Windows key is retail, so none of that OEM version nonsense.

If you have don't have the keycodes and/or you have them, but have used all your activations: you'll need to call customer support and request new keycodes or to have them reset manually if you don't have access to the uninstaller (because your drive is DOA). Pretty sure Windows allows for 1-3 acivations per year with the retail version, at least they did with Windows 7. I've had to call Adobe about resetting codes when my boss's PC cratered and they didn't kick up any fuss about it.