I got suckered into fixing a neighbor's computer. Turns out that their hard drive had gone bad. No problem, really. Just get them to get a new hard drive and reinstall Windows. I was able to use GetDataBack, and my refrigerator, to recover virtually everything off the bad drive, so restoring the data shouldn't be a big problem. I was even able to load the computer's registry as a hive to recover its CD Key. Which is where the problem comes in.

I've tried installing Windows a number of ways from a number of different install media, and I can't get it to accept the CD Key. The computer is a discard from her previous employer, so I have no idea how it was initially installed. Also, (I assume) she doesn't have a Windows install CD.

I ended up calling Microsoft licensing support and they told me that if I gave them the part number printed on the original CD, they would give me a new Key. But I don't have the original CD; if I did I (probably) wouldn't be having this problem to begin with.

As I was typing this post, it occurred to me to search Google for the CD Key, and I found that it's an OEM/SLP key, which apparently is a key used en masse by big computer integrators to simplify installation. (That is, apparently, your preinstalled Dell computer probably has the same CD Key as "every" other Dell computer.) And those keys won't activate in the normal manner.

So what do I do now? Sadly, there's no CD Key sticker on the computer itself. Half the stickers are worn off, so I don't know if it ever had one or not. But the key matches the manufacturer, IBM. I have no reason to believe that it's an illegal installation.