View registry of HDD attached externally [solved]

Reznik

Ok, so I have a legally purchased copy of Mass Effect 1. I installed it on my old computer. I have since moved and lost the card that came with the ME packaging that has the serial key on it. I have my old HDD in an enclosure. I want to view the registry of this old (XP) drive to recover the key of the ME1 install and install it on my current Windows 7 PC.

Is there a way to just view the XP registry? I don't need to edit it or anything.

Alternately, is there a way to contact EA/Bioware to get another key?

aioua

The keywords you're looking for is "mounting a registry hive". This video has a pretty good overview.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuSxbDIlFW0

If you need to get to keys within HKEY_LOCAL_USER those are in the user's NTUSER.DAT file. Just mount it like you would the others.

I'm not sure what happens if you mount an XP hive on a seven machine. I don't think you''ll break anything... but no promises.

Reznik

Thanks!