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#1
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getting a Mac address off of a dead motherboard
Hello people,
I have a Dell Optiplex GX620 who motherboard appears to have died. Well, what can you say? Everybody dies one day, right? However, there is a small problem he we' ve got this software who license is tied to the MAC address assigned to the network card which sits on that motherboard. Is there any way to figure out what that MAC address was? Any advice much appreciated. Boris. |
#2
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getting a Mac address off of a dead motherboard
Boris Epstein wrote:
Hello people, I have a Dell Optiplex GX620 who motherboard appears to have died. Well, what can you say? Everybody dies one day, right? Yet to be proven. See this video, starting at 3:54: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=un_7fXwLq5Q However, there is a small problem he we' ve got this software who license is tied to the MAC address assigned to the network card which sits on that motherboard. Is there any way to figure out what that MAC address was? Any advice much appreciated. I would make a careful inspection of the unit, inside and out. I have see MAC address stickers on several PCs. Failing that, contacting Dell might suss it out. Retrieving that information directly from the hardware is, as they say, beyond my pay grade. |
#3
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getting a Mac address off of a dead motherboard
Boris Epstein wrote:
I have a Dell Optiplex GX620 who motherboard appears to have died. Well, what can you say? Everybody dies one day, right? However, there is a small problem he we' ve got this software who license is tied to the MAC address assigned to the network card which sits on that motherboard. Is there any way to figure out what that MAC address was? You sure the software license is tied to the MAC address. That means the software is tied to a particular host and cannot be [re]installed anywhere else - as you are claiming now. The MAC address is tied to the network adapter. If you replace the NIC then the hardware-based MAC will change. So it also means that you could never replace the network card. An OS can change the MAC address that it reports. In Windows, it is a property of the device that you look at in Device Manager. That means an admin user could specify a different software MAC than the hardware MAC. Although rare, there have been occasions when MACs are identical on a large corporate network. In the past, some NICs let you reprogram the MAC (but that only means it could overlap a different one). So the OS now allows the MAC to be reported from there. So what is this software? If it is vertical market software, and if the boob was so stupid as to tie it to a specific MAC address, then you have to go to the vendor and tell them you need a new version (where the MAC limitation isn't applied) or to get a fresh install that will read whatever is the current MAC address on the new host where you install their buffoonish software. I suspect that it isn't the MAC address but a firmware signature of brand, model, and serial number on the network adapter card to which the software is tied. That is, the software came with that NIC and only works with that NIC until you call their tech support to get a new copy of the software that will work with a different NIC and its firmware signature. If the MAC was tied to a network adapter card, why not simply move it from the old host to the new one? |
#4
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getting a Mac address off of a dead motherboard
Boris Epstein wrote:
Hello people, I have a Dell Optiplex GX620 who motherboard appears to have died. Well, what can you say? Everybody dies one day, right? However, there is a small problem he we' ve got this software who license is tied to the MAC address assigned to the network card which sits on that motherboard. Is there any way to figure out what that MAC address was? Any advice much appreciated. Boris. Is linux installed on that machine? If so, udev copied the MAC address to /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules during the first boot-up. Put the HD into another machine as a slave drive and read it. Easy! |
#5
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getting a Mac address off of a dead motherboard
VanguardLH wrote:
Boris Epstein wrote: ( ... ) However, there is a small problem he we' ve got this software who license is tied to the MAC address assigned to the network card which sits on that motherboard. ( ... ) If the MAC was tied to a network adapter card, why not simply move it from the old host to the new one? Methinks the motherboard had an integrated network adapter. Moving it requires careful sawing, grafting on PCI contacts, etc. |
#6
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getting a Mac address off of a dead motherboard
Bryce wrote:
VanguardLH wrote: Boris Epstein wrote: ( ... ) However, there is a small problem he we' ve got this software who license is tied to the MAC address assigned to the network card which sits on that motherboard. ( ... ) If the MAC was tied to a network adapter card, why not simply move it from the old host to the new one? Methinks the motherboard had an integrated network adapter. Moving it requires careful sawing, grafting on PCI contacts, etc. Hmm, a Frankenstein mobo job. But that still does not prevent overriding the hardware MAC by having the OS report a different software MAC. |
#7
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getting a Mac address off of a dead motherboard
VanguardLH wrote:
Bryce wrote: VanguardLH wrote: Boris Epstein wrote: ( ... ) However, there is a small problem he we' ve got this software who license is tied to the MAC address assigned to the network card which sits on that motherboard. ( ... ) If the MAC was tied to a network adapter card, why not simply move it from the old host to the new one? Methinks the motherboard had an integrated network adapter. Moving it requires careful sawing, grafting on PCI contacts, etc. Hmm, a Frankenstein mobo job. But that still does not prevent overriding the hardware MAC by having the OS report a different software MAC. True enough ... if only he knew what the app wants the MAC to be. |
#8
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getting a Mac address off of a dead motherboard
Bryce wrote:
Boris Epstein wrote: Hello people, I have a Dell Optiplex GX620 who motherboard appears to have died. Well, what can you say? Everybody dies one day, right? However, there is a small problem he we' ve got this software who license is tied to the MAC address assigned to the network card which sits on that motherboard. Is there any way to figure out what that MAC address was? Any advice much appreciated. Boris. Is linux installed on that machine? If so, udev copied the MAC address to /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules during the first boot-up. Put the HD into another machine as a slave drive and read it. Easy! And in Windows XP it is stored in the registry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Genuine Advantage assuming, of course, that one has gone down the WGA path. I believe it should be possible to read the registry if the HD is hooked up as a data drive in another machine but I haven't a clue about the program that would do the job. -- John McGaw [Knoxville, TN, USA] http://johnmcgaw.com |
#9
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getting a Mac address off of a dead motherboard
Some of the things other people have mention reminds me of another
possibility: My router keeps a list of MAC address so that it's DHCP server can hand out the same ip address to the same machine. Maybe your router has the MAC similarly cached? |
#10
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getting a Mac address off of a dead motherboard
On Feb 26, 9:15 pm, Grinder wrote:
Some of the things other people have mention reminds me of another possibility: My router keeps a list of MAC address so that it's DHCP server can hand out the same ip address to the same machine. Maybe your router has the MAC similarly cached? Thanks everybody! Turned out the corporate IT had a network log going back a year, and that enabled us to get that MAC address. Problem solved! Boris. |
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