Lost my disc for Linksys router.

My old tower crashed, so i went out and bought a new one. I want to add a wireless laptop to my wi fi in house, but i lost my cd disk that came with router. All the info and password is in my old tower, the encryption key i have written on paper will not work. How can i access the router with my new tower? I can see my network map and see what is connected, but this new laptop does not have the key installed yet.

I assume you can connect to your router via an IP address (incl. port number), yes? You can with most typical routers - if you don't remember, look up a product manual for your router online and it should be in there - as should a "default" password for your router (often something like "admin" as a username and "password" as a password).

If your router can be "hard reset" (that is, reset on the router itself - usually a small button in the back) that SHOULD also reset the password to the default, so you can just go to the router's IP and re-set up everything. (Obviously, you'll lose all your settings in the reset, but that's normally not a big deal.)

Also, check the router manufacturer's website - they might have (in addition the the aforementioned manual) a downloadable copy of the router software you could get.