he may not have an illegal copy, unless he just admitted it right there, if you move half life, reformat, get a virus, and other fun stuff like that, it can screw up your registry, and then HL makes you reinput your CD key because it doesn't have it correctly registered in windows registry, could be that. but if you have bootleg HL, shame on you, drop the $20 you bum and get a good copy.
