How to recover Windows 8 product key when it's too late

When you buy a Windows 8 based laptop, it will not come with a Windows 8 product key sticker anymore, so finding your product key becomes more complicated. Especially when your hard drive becomes faulty and you can't boot into Windows anymore.

If Windows 8 is not booting, and the drive's health is low - you can always send your laptop back for warranty repair. But if warranty is not available anymore - you might have to replace the hard drive yourself. But you will need your product key to reinstall Windows 8 back onto a new hard drive. So to recover your product key you will need to take out the faulty hard drive (assuming the data is still accessible) and connect it to a working computer as an additional hard drive. You will then need a tool called ProduKey by NirSoft - available here free of charge. Run the tool and point it to the windows folder on the faulty drive. It will then recover and show your Windows 8 Product Key, all that's left is obtaining the installation image and using this product key to reinstall your OS.