Product key issue

I am repairing a laptop for a customer whose hard drive failed catastrophically (there was severe physical damage). He has the restore CD, and the Windows COA is attached to the bottom of the laptop.

BUT .....

The COA has a tear in it ... and 3 characters are gone. The rest of the COA is intact and clearly legible. The missing characters are the first 3 characters of the last group of 5 characters, if it matters. And while some don't, this restore CD is requiring entry of a valid product key during the installation/OOBE process (this particular laptop was originally bought outside the US, although it's an English version of Windows).

Does anyone know of any way to recover the product key other than trying all 46,656 possible combinations of the three missing characters? (that's 36***3 .... if some of the 26 letters and 10 numerals such as "I" and "O" are never used in product keys, that alone would be useful information). Ideally, I'd like a program where I put in the known characters and I get possible valid values for the full product key. Or even a program where I can enter a whole product key (3 characters guessed) to see if it's valid.

I understand that if such a program exists, it's most likely a hacker / cracker program, but this situation is legitimate. It's Windows XP Pro OEM on a Toshiba laptop.

[If someone has an answer but doesn't want to post it here, you can E-Mail directly.]

Thanks,
Barry Watzman
Watzman@xxxxxxxxxx

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Product key issue
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