The new patch is out. The Dom3 game might soon be added to auto-update services such as Desura and Steam. The holidays are coming and CyberWeek is here for sales so many people might be getting new computers or new harddrives.
Do you know where your key is?
And is that the only copy of it?
Your Dom3 key is in a plain text file in the dominions3 directory, and the file is named "key". RIGHT NOW there is no excuse for not finding out what your key is and putting it someplace else. Write it in the manual, write it on the mousepad, stick a label someplace and write it there, email it to yourself.
For that matter, you might also want to do that with other keys.
In fact, why dont you have backups of your machine? (sorry, Im required to ask that)