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I've got a new HP laptop, and once I removed all the default HP junk that's on there, it now has trouble booting. I'm intended to just reformat the thing completely and start fresh with a real installation of Windows, but before I do that I want to get in there and run a utility to find out what the Windows serial key is. But in order to do that, I need to be able to boot into it in the first place!

I've tried pressing F8 repeatedly, holding it down, etc., but it won't even give me any options to choose at all. It just tries booting Windows normally each time no matter how I try to press F8. So I'm wondering if there are any boot CDs out there that simply force Windows to go directly into Safe Mode. Surely this should be possible, but I'm not so sure if anyone's made that kind of utility. Obviously I'm looking for something I can find as an ISO image.

Is there any such disc available?

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  • Sounds like some of that HP stuff was not junk after all.
    – Moab
    Aug 25, 2011 at 19:24
  • Keep in mind that the HP OEM SLP key (which is what you'll get if you manage to pull it from the installed copy) may not work with a NON-HP install disk. Aug 25, 2011 at 20:14
  • @ techie007, as long as it is an OEM install disk it will work, which can be found here....mydigitallife.info/…
    – Moab
    Aug 25, 2011 at 20:37
  • @Moab That was actually a typo, I mean to say "Non-OEM". :) Aug 25, 2011 at 22:08
  • If you have not deleted the HP Recovery partition, then booting into that partition (use the F11 key) would be the preferred mechanism to getting back to the original machine state. If you install Windows7 with the System Builder OEM DVD, then you will lose a few HP utilities as well as the bloatware.
    – sawdust
    Aug 25, 2011 at 22:49

2 Answers 2

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If it's a new HP laptop the windows license code should be on a COA license sticker on the bottom.

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  • Ah. So it is. <inserts foot into mouth>
    – soapergem
    Aug 25, 2011 at 19:09
  • I thought you might be making things more complicated than they should be ;-)
    – Col
    Aug 25, 2011 at 19:11
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If you want to get to safe mode and F8 isn't getting anything, another way to do it would be to edit boot.ini with a Win XP PE CD, and add /SAFEBOOT

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  • -1 for not reading where it says "Windows 7" in the question. There hasn't been a boot.ini in the Windows NT boot process since before Windows Vista, and what that had and Windows 7 has don't have /SAFEBOOT.
    – JdeBP
    Aug 25, 2011 at 23:29
  • @JdeBP you're right re boot.ini. I'm not that familiar with Win7, but Windows 7 does have msconfig which mentions a /safeboot option. See here bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial61.html and apparently there's a bcdedit.exe(that's 7 and of course, not xp), accessible in the recovery console which may help with editing boot options.
    – barlop
    Aug 26, 2011 at 17:06
  • No, msconfig doesn't have a /safeboot option and that page nowhere says that it does.
    – JdeBP
    Aug 27, 2011 at 10:53
  • @JdeBP Try scrolling down that page, it says "Windows 7" then "Using the F8 method" then scroll down further, and it shows msconfig and even has a picture showing /safeboot, and says "Windows 7 Boot tab in the System Configuration utility" Try the boot tab. According to that page, it is there.
    – barlop
    Aug 27, 2011 at 11:41
  • No kiddo, it does not have a picture showing /safeboot for Windows 7. That's in the "Windows XP" section, and it's not an option to msconfig.
    – JdeBP
    Aug 27, 2011 at 12:43

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