I got drafted into repairing a friend's laptop. He got a virus and after removing it the laptop would no longer boot into Windows. After banging my head against the wall for several days I've finally admitted that at this point a reinstall is the only option. I've already backed up most of his important stuff to an external using a Linux live cd.
Here's the issue: The laptop came with a recovery partition, which is unfortunately not working. So I burned a copy of the official Windows 7 install disk and want to use that. But the laptop is a few years old and the sticker on the bottom with the product key is illegible. To my knowledge the key isn't written down anywhere else, and I don't want to start the reinstall without being able to activate it.
So, is there any way to find the Windows product key without being able to read the sticker or boot up windows? I can access the filesystem using the live cd, but thats about it.
Thanks