What you see returned by the VOL command is the PARTITION ID number, or
the Partition Signature, this is not what Bill is talking about, he is
talking about the DISK Signature.

You can read the disk signature at the registry's
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices DosDevices values or you can
get it with the Diskpart utility... or read in from the MBR with disk
editing or MBR tools like MBRWiz.

The partition signature is made up of the Disk Signature plus additional
numbers. If you have more than one partition on the disk you can look
as the DosDevices values at the MountedDevices key and you will see that
all the partitions on the same disk start with the same signature, the
first four bytes are the disk signature, it will look something like this:

CA A5 F8 A7

The signature is read in reverse order from the DosDevices value, the
above translates to the following disk signatu

A7F8A5CA

John


On 11/14/2010 7:58 PM, Tim Meddick wrote:
I have not used Acronis disk image - and if it does not, as you say (and
I'm not about to argue) then it cannot be creating a true CLONE copy of
the original!

A "clone" of the original means a complete copy of all data on a
hard-drive as opposed to just a "volume image file".

When you type ;

VOL C:

...at the command prompt, and get the following data returned ;

Volume in drive C is SYSTEM
Volume Serial Number is 1AD1-ABE1

...the Volume ID [1AD1-ABE1] is stored in the boot-sector of that volume.


This number is totally different from the data that's hard-encoded on
the firmware of a fixed-disk that can be queried by the operating system
or any other software.

This data would include the manufacturer's name and the hard-drive's
unique serial number.

For instance; I have two fixed hard-drives in my machine, both identical
Segate IDE 37.6 GB drives. Amongst the data retrieved by the OS from
both drives are as follows;

Physical disk 0 Manufacturer=Seagate
Device Instance ID=IDE\DISKST340016A_______3.19___\483...

Physical disk 1 Manufacturer=Seagate
Device Instance ID=IDE\DISKST340810A_______3.39___\463...

...this coincides with the BIOS data stating that the HD serial numbers
are as follows;

Disk0=ST340016A
Disk1=ST340810A

It would be irrelevant for this data to be encoded into the MBR or
Bootsector as any software can easily interrogate the device directly.

Also, each partition on the HD has it's own volume serial number,
generated by the format process, written into each Bootsector for each
partition - as shown - and this is, as you say, a number in hexadecimal
format.

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London. :-)




"Bill in Co" wrote in message
news
Tim Meddick wrote:
One more time.......

The disk (volume) has it's VolumeID - that IS written into the
partition.

I don't think I'm talking about any "volume ID" here. I'm talking
about a unique *disk identification number*, a string of hex digits,
apparently stored within the MBR. It is called the disk-id or the disk
identification number, not the volume number.

However, that is an intrinsic part of the data that disk-cloning WOULD
include in any copies it made.

And no, it doesn't! It wasn't until the most recent versions of
Acronis True Image that you even had the OPTION of cloning the *disk
id*! The recent versions provide a checkbox for just that (along with
the MBR) if you choose to select it. Otherwise, it is NOT copied over
to the new drive.

You can go check that out (I already read about it, and even tried
this thing out with a demo of a newer version to compare with my
somewhat older version. The new version has this special checkbox
option, but the older ones don't.

Plus if you research this on the Internet, you'll see where the exact
issue I've been talking about has come up for several other people
(i.e., after cloning, some programs needed reactivation, due to this
disk-id issue).

That makes it NOT the cause of sudden requests by software for
"re-activation"!

I respectively disagree, because I think we're talking about two
different things here. But if you've got a reference article that
proves me wrong on my assumptions, I'll look it up. (meaning it
categorically states that the volume ID is the same as the "disk-id"
or "disk identification number".

No - the only thing that makes any sense is this; that if you try to
start
the software from a cloned copy of a disk it will compare the DiskID (or
hard-drive serial number) with one contained in the registry (which
would
have been gathered on installation) and found a discrepancy between it's
recorded DiskID and that of the current hard-drive.

The VolumeID (that is written into the bootsector) has got nothing to do
with it.

(That's the number that shows up when you type VOL C: at the prompt)

Again, which, AFAIK, is NOT what I'm talking about.

You may need a hard disk editor to find out its value, unless its
value is stored in the registry, and I'm not sure it really is. (Or
one could have a low level subroutine within one's program that could
access the disk/firmware to find out its value).

But again, I'm not talking about a "volume ID" here. (Paul can correct
me if I'm wrong here, however :-) These are two different things:
volume id and disk identification number, I do believe.

Otherwise one could not use such utilities as volid.exe to alter the
volume
serial number (VolumeID) without Windows wanting re-activation all the
time....

Just changed my SYSTEM drive's VolumeID from 1AD1-ABE1 to 0000-0000
and guess what? - No problems at all!!

But the hard-drive's serial number is hard-encoded into the firmware
components on the hard-drive itself and can be queried by any
software that
want to know it!

But that, I think, I believe.


==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London. :-)




"Bill in Co" wrote in message
m...
Everybody except me. :-) But even if I could get it, I'd have to use
a hex editor and write its exact value back into the source drives
MBR to
negate this one issue - a bit risky, at that. :-)

What I found interesting was that only a few programs apparently
make use
of that for copy protection and activation purposes. I can see the
advantage of doing so from the software manufacturer's viewpoint,
however. But for the user it can be a bit of a nuisance, and nasty if
the company goes out of business (then your software that checked that
disk identification ID becomes effectively useless)

Tim Meddick wrote:
Whether or not what you call the disk id (serial number) is reproduced
in
the boot sector or not, the system, or any program that asks, can
get a
hd
serial number by querying the hard-drive directly...

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London. :-)




"Bill in Co" wrote in message
m...
Some FYI here, and a question or two, on disk cloning:

One thing I found interesting (annoying, actually) was that after
cloning
my main system drive to a brand new one and putting the new one in,
several programs needed to be reactivated. Apparently this is due to
the disk-id's being different for each drive. It appears that several
programs use that disk-id as a basis for copy protection
validation, so
if you replace your source drive, be aware. It's a bit annoying. :-)

Acronis True Image (at least my older version, True Home 11), does
NOT
clone the disk-id as part of the MBR

Actually, if anyone happens to know of an inexpensive cloning program
that does clone over the disk-id (at least as an option), it would be
good to hear. Perhaps Clonezilla does, or something like that? I
think
the newer and more bloated versions of Acronis can allow for it.

At any rate, I was thinking another way around this would be to
extract
the disk-id of the original ID (maybe it's even stored in the
registry,
or somewhere in an older image backup) and then use a disk editor to
write that hex value to the MBR in place of the current one, although
this sounds a bit risky. Has anyone ever tried that?

It probably would be simpler to just find some disk cloning program
that
*actually copies the entire MBR minus the partition table but
*including*
the disk-id, and redoing this, if I understand this right.

Otherwise, one is forced to go through the hassle of reactivating the
variouus programs as the incidents show up.