Windows 10: Can't locate Activation Key from old PC/HDD. Need help!

If this is the wrong location for this or duplicate, I will remove when I'm informed of so.

I had an old HP workstation PC recently start crashing giving me that "Something has gone wrong" blue screen. This PC was nearing a decade old so I decided to rebuild outside of reusing the optical drive and my 1tb HDD which was still plenty for me. So after new PSU, mobo, CPU, RAM, everything booted up smoothly at first. Then I got the blue screen crash again so I came to the realization that it must be my HDD. Purchased new HDD, installed Windows on it and as most of you know, I now have to reactivate my Windows. I can't place any Windows license stickers on my old HP case. It was originally Windows 7 Pro updated to 10. I've called HP and they tell me there isn't an activation code that it should be a digital license but I don't have anything tied to my Microsoft account. I have attempted to use programs like ProduKey to find my key from the old broken HDD. No luck. I am able to access the old broken HDD with limited success but not totally. It's trying to get me to format the drive but sometimes will let me dig around in the files. I'm looking for any suggestions to keep me from having to purchase a new Windows license. TIA.

submitted by /u/tomdaspartan
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:)

 

LOCATE ACTIVATION KEY

The key discovered by keyfinder apps such as the one DaveM121 suggested might not be helpful. Why are you interested in retrieving the product key?

 

Need some help. Old HDD. New laptop.

Yes, that would be a favorable solution if possible. But it requires what I said as a first step. Once he gets booted into the OS, then he can either use it as is or try to recover the product key. I'm not saying he couldn't do what you said, I was replying to another post that suggested simply copy/pasting documents from the old hard drive.

 

unlock hdd

Hi Johan,

It is possible that your
HDD was unreadable
causing the error message to appear. We recommend that you perform these troubleshooting steps and check if there are any changes:

• 
  Shutdown
  your
  PC.
  
• 
  Unhooked
  the
  HDD
  and
  turn on
  your
  PC.
  
• 
  Reconnect
  your
  HDD
  and
  restart
  your
  PC.
  

If the issue persists, we suggest that you contact your
laptop/computer's manufacturer
for further assistance.

Update us on how it goes.

Regards.