Vista won't boot past mouse cursor, no product key

[Ottosump]

Hi group, I've tried everything to get my system to boot to no avail, it goes as far as the mouse pointer appearing on a black background then stops, the mouse pointer is still active but that's it. So I needed to reinstall the Vista O/S. The problem is that my product sticker is missing two digits and I can't validate the system upon a new installation. I therefore installed Vista onto the drives other partition with the hope of retrieving the product key via a third party program such as the Jelly bean key finder, but this only find the key on the newly installed O/S and not on the original partition which contains the validated version of Vista.
Any help would really be appreciated.
Regards, Otto, Cumbria UK.

 

[richc46]

Jelly bean should show the current number, but if it does not. Most computers have a factory restoration partition. This means that on boot if you press certain keys, the computer will reinstall the way it was when you took the computer home.
Its all in your manual, if you dont have your manual, give us your make and model.

 

[Ottosump]

Unfortunately when I had the laptop in for repair about 2 years ago, the repair shop replaced the drive and did not copy over the backup partition. jelly bean does show the product key, for the temporary OEM Vista installation which I installed onto the drives other blank partition. But it doesn't show the serial for the first partition which has the fault Vista O/S installed on it.
kind regards otto

 

[Shadowjk]

Have you tried booting into safe mode? - http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/123496-safe-mode.html

How did the machine enter in this hanging cycle? Did you recently install software or hardware? If not, what is your A/V?

Many Thanks,
Josh

 

[eddiebelfast]

I've tried everything to get my system to boot ..

You offer no idea as to your machine specs. It helps if you do!

Have you tried clearing the BIOS?

 

[Lottiemansion]

Hi,

As previously mentioned, if you give us the exact make & model of PC you are working on we can help you get the code.

You just need to help us to help you!