Hard drive is formatted, everything is a go until it gets to entering the product key. Is there a way to find the product key? Or is there a generic key since win98 is no longer copyrighted?

Windows 98 is still copyrighted. Is the CD you are useing a Recovery CD or a Retail/OEM 98 CD? You should have gotten your product key before you formatted. Jesus Loves You! Keyboard not detected. Hit F1 to Continue. BREAKFAST.SYS HALTED Cerial port not Responding!!

Unless you have the original packaging with the key on it, you're screwed. Best bet, see if you can buy a secondhand copy with key. As the previous poster said you should have got it before formatting, you can't unspill the milk.

I know there was one for 95, I suspect on for 98. Sure wish I knew how to get the data. I did look all over at one time. I suspect it is hashed in some other file so it can't easily be found. Keep looking, almost everything has been discovered. "Best Practices", Event viewer, host file, perfmon, antivirus, anti-spyware, Live CD's, backups, are in my top 10

All you have to do is enter the correct search terms into google. http://www.dslreports.com/forum/rem...

The product key is not written to the cd. The cd contains a formula to determine if the key you enter is valid. That way microsoft can make all the disks the same. It also means any valid key will work. The only distinction is OEM and retail disks have different formulas so you can't use, for example, a retail key with an OEM cd. I believe the formula on the upgrade disks are different too. First and second edition cds use the same formula so you can use a first edition key with a second edition cd or vice versa. So I guess that makes every key a 'generic' universal key.