[Hampshire] [OT] Content might offend Penguins

Hi,

I am trying to recover a friends laptop hard disk.
It is a windows machine.
I have booted from a Linux CD and recovered all the files the user
wanted me to. Basically all their photos.
The laptop is a windows Vista laptop. It does not boot and using
smartctl I can see that is it about to fail. "Sector relocation count"
has moved from 10 to 15 just while I recovered the photos!
Now, I have the problem of re-installing Vista but the user does not
have the install media any more.
Does anyone know, from the Linux command prompt, how I can find out
which version of Vista they have installed?
The laptop has the Vista license key on the bottom, so I am figuring
that if I can obtain some install media, I could still use the key
that came with the laptop.
I just need the correct version of the install media. This might save
the user paying £150 for new media and license.

Kind Regards

James