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#16
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Problems with cloning, and the different disk-id's forcing newreactivation
John John - MVP wrote:
I think that Bill was asking about the disk signature, with is a different thing than the Volume ID. John With a hex editor, I can see it here, at 1B8 on an MBR I've got archived. So it's easy to spot, as it is right before the four partition entries. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record In my hex editor (editing the archived MBR sector), I see 1B8 A1 84 9D 80 and in Diskpart "detail disk" I see Disk ID: 80 9D 84 A1 so you have to be careful when looking at it from a tools perspective. (It took me a few minutes to realize it was backwards.) Paul |
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#17
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Problems with cloning, and the different disk-id's forcing newreactivation
On 11/14/2010 1:32 PM, Paul wrote:
John John - MVP wrote: I think that Bill was asking about the disk signature, with is a different thing than the Volume ID. John With a hex editor, I can see it here, at 1B8 on an MBR I've got archived. So it's easy to spot, as it is right before the four partition entries. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record In my hex editor (editing the archived MBR sector), I see 1B8 A1 84 9D 80 Yep, the 4 byte long NT disk signature is held from offsets 1B8h through 1BBh (byte 440 to 443). It's all well explained he http://mirror.href.com/thestarman/asm/mbr/Win2kmbr.htm John |
#18
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Problems with cloning, and the different disk-id's forcing newreactivation
Tim Meddick wrote: Just changed my SYSTEM drive's VolumeID from 1AD1-ABE1 to 0000-0000 and guess what? - No problems at all!! Changing just one item does not in itself trigger an activation problem. You need to make a series of changes to create a problem that you are talking about. I have made changes to my system by increasing or changing the memory module but this too does not create a problem. Few weeks later I will perform some other changes and again this won't create any problems. The problem only arises when you make substantial changes to make the system think it is a different system. Otherwise, I agree to your premise that cloning (or what I like to call imaging because I use Ghost most of the time) does make an identical copy of the HD and activation of Microsoft products (I emphasize MS) is not a problem. I keep an image of my HD with Windows XP only then install all the applications and create another image; then install all the updates and create a third image. Finally, I make backups of my data on a weekly basis knowing that the system is fully backed up. hth |
#19
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Problems with cloning, and the different disk-id's forcing new reactivation
Tester wrote:
Tim Meddick wrote: Just changed my SYSTEM drive's VolumeID from 1AD1-ABE1 to 0000-0000 and guess what? - No problems at all!! Changing just one item does not in itself trigger an activation problem. You need to make a series of changes to create a problem that you are talking about. Nope. That is not always true! I only made ONE change (the HD), and that was enough for a few applications. So while that may generally be true, it is not always true. |
#20
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Problems with cloning, and the different disk-id's forcing new reactivation
Thanks for the verification John. I was wondering if I really was having
a senior moment again, but that's reassuring to hear. :-) John John - MVP wrote: I think that Bill was asking about the disk signature, with is a different thing than the Volume ID. John On 11/14/2010 12:43 AM, Tim Meddick wrote: One more time....... The disk (volume) has it's VolumeID - that IS written into the partition. However, that is an intrinsic part of the data that disk-cloning WOULD include in any copies it made. That makes it NOT the cause of sudden requests by software for "re-activation"! 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) 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! == 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. |
#21
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Problems with cloning, and the different disk-id's forcing new reactivation
Thanks Paul.
Yours - and John's - reference articles are pretty informative (the latter ref is pretty heavy, however. :-) Paul wrote: John John - MVP wrote: I think that Bill was asking about the disk signature, with is a different thing than the Volume ID. John With a hex editor, I can see it here, at 1B8 on an MBR I've got archived. So it's easy to spot, as it is right before the four partition entries. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record In my hex editor (editing the archived MBR sector), I see 1B8 A1 84 9D 80 and in Diskpart "detail disk" I see Disk ID: 80 9D 84 A1 so you have to be careful when looking at it from a tools perspective. (It took me a few minutes to realize it was backwards.) Paul |
#22
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Problems with cloning, and the different disk-id's forcing new reactivation
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. |
#23
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Problems with cloning, and the different disk-id's forcing newreactivation
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. |
#24
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Problems with cloning, and the different disk-id's forcing new reactivation
Point taken - we all live and learn......
I use CloneMaxx - a DOS-based (or 4dos) program started from a floppy disk. This copies the entire physical HD from sector 0 to it's end to another drive of sufficient size (this obviously includes the MBR and DiskID)... Download the Clone Maxx [free] software (749.78K) http://download.cnet.com/PC-Inspecto...-10216111.html == Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London. :-) "John John - MVP" wrote in message ... 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 clipped |
#25
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Problems with cloning, and the different disk-id's forcing new reactivation
Tim Meddick wrote:
Point taken - we all live and learn...... Yeah, and we all do. :-) I use CloneMaxx - a DOS-based (or 4dos) program started from a floppy disk. Well, at first glance this looked promising, but it's apparently so old it doesn't support SATA drives, or even USB. Which kills it for me (and I imagine quite a few others with updated hardware), unfortunately. I think the older IDE or PATA drives are becoming a bit of history, now. :-) This copies the entire physical HD from sector 0 to it's end to another drive of sufficient size (this obviously includes the MBR and DiskID)... I don't know about the "obviously" part, however. As I explained earlier, which cloning programs copy which parts of the MBR ... is still up in the air. They all don't copy the disk-id, as I mentioned. In fact, if I were taking bets, I'd bet most DON'T copy the disk-id (nor should they, in principle). Download the Clone Maxx [free] software (749.78K) http://download.cnet.com/PC-Inspecto...-10216111.html == Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London. :-) "John John - MVP" wrote in message ... 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 clipped |
#26
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Problems with cloning, and the different disk-id's forcing new reactivation
I said "Obviously" because it was part of a larger sentence that began
"This copies the entire physical HD from sector 0 to it's end..." and if that is true (that it copies the *entire* drive ), then the MBR would be part of that. But also, on reflection, maybe I should have mentioned CloneMaxx's limitations. I don't se why the software shouldn't copy the DiskID - it's just a random number, as far as I can tell, that's assigned by the OS for future reference. It's not like it's taken from the physical disk like it's serial number, is it? == Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London. :-) "Bill in Co" wrote in message m... Tim Meddick wrote: Point taken - we all live and learn...... Yeah, and we all do. :-) I use CloneMaxx - a DOS-based (or 4dos) program started from a floppy disk. Well, at first glance this looked promising, but it's apparently so old it doesn't support SATA drives, or even USB. Which kills it for me (and I imagine quite a few others with updated hardware), unfortunately. I think the older IDE or PATA drives are becoming a bit of history, now. :-) This copies the entire physical HD from sector 0 to it's end to another drive of sufficient size (this obviously includes the MBR and DiskID)... I don't know about the "obviously" part, however. As I explained earlier, which cloning programs copy which parts of the MBR ... is still up in the air. They all don't copy the disk-id, as I mentioned. In fact, if I were taking bets, I'd bet most DON'T copy the disk-id (nor should they, in principle). Download the Clone Maxx [free] software (749.78K) http://download.cnet.com/PC-Inspecto...-10216111.html == Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London. :-) "John John - MVP" wrote in message ... 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 clipped |
#27
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Problems with cloning, and the different disk-id's forcing new reactivation
Mr. Tim Med-dick
http://mynews.ath.cx/doc/winsys/Sys/Vol-Ser-Num.jpg In Command Prompt C:\dir vol For it's VSN C:\cd D: D:\ D:\dir Vol For a it VSN |
#28
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Problems with cloning, and the different disk-id's forcing newreactivation
On 11/15/2010 7:27 AM, Tim Meddick wrote:
I don't see why the software shouldn't copy the DiskID - it's just a random number, as far as I can tell, that's assigned by the OS for future reference. It's not like it's taken from the physical disk like it's serial number, is it? Windows NT operating systems cannot access disks without signatures, they use signatures to identify disks and the Mount Manager uses signatures to assign persistent drive letters. If a disk has no signature Windows will write one to the disk. No two disks can have identical signatures, if two disks have identical signatures Windows will change the signature on one of them, this can lead to booting problems when the signature on the boot disk is changed as the Mount Manager may assign a different letter to the drive. In view of the fact that no two disks can have the same signature it is not unusual for cloning utilities to not copy the signature to the newly cloned disk, different cloning utilities handle this differently in their default settings and most of the better utilities have switches to copy or not copy the signature, just like they have switches to copy or not copy volatile files like the pagefile or hibernation file. John |
#29
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Problems with cloning, and the different disk-id's forcing newreactivation
On 11/15/2010 8:14 AM, Hot-Text wrote:
Mr. Tim Med-dick http://mynews.ath.cx/doc/winsys/Sys/Vol-Ser-Num.jpg In Command Prompt C:\dir vol For it's VSN C:\cd D: D:\ D:\dir Vol For a it VSN Now try these: Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600] (C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp. C:\diskpart Microsoft DiskPart version 5.1.3565 Copyright (C) 1999-2003 Microsoft Corporation. On computer: JGZ-HOME DISKPART select disk 0 Disk 0 is now the selected disk. DISKPART detail disk IBM-ESXS ST373207LW FN SCSI Disk Device Disk ID: CCCDCCCD Type : SCSI Bus : 3 Target : 0 LUN ID : 0 Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info ---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- -------- Volume 2 C JGZ-HOME NTFS Partition 67 GB Healthy System DISKPART select disk 1 Disk 1 is now the selected disk. DISKPART detail disk FUJITSU MBA3147NC SCSI Disk Device Disk ID: A7F8A5CA Type : SCSI Bus : 3 Target : 1 LUN ID : 0 Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info ---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- -------- Volume 3 D Data Disk NTFS Partition 137 GB Healthy DISKPART exit Leaving DiskPart... C:\ John |
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Problems with cloning, and the different disk-id's forcing new reactivation
?"Bill in Co" wrote in message
m... Tim Meddick wrote: Point taken - we all live and learn...... Yeah, and we all do. :-) I use CloneMaxx - a DOS-based (or 4dos) program started from a floppy disk. Well, at first glance this looked promising, but it's apparently so old it doesn't support SATA drives, or even USB. Which kills it for me (and I imagine quite a few others with updated hardware), unfortunately. I think the older IDE or PATA drives are becoming a bit of history, now. :-) This copies the entire physical HD from sector 0 to it's end to another drive of sufficient size (this obviously includes the MBR and DiskID)... I don't know about the "obviously" part, however. As I explained earlier, which cloning programs copy which parts of the MBR ... is still up in the air. They all don't copy the disk-id, as I mentioned. In fact, if I were taking bets, I'd bet most DON'T copy the disk-id (nor should they, in principle). Download the Clone Maxx [free] software (749.78K) http://download.cnet.com/PC-Inspecto...-10216111.html Bill in Colorado, I have been following this item for several days and am amazed at all the "stuff" that is being proposed to solve the simple problem of cloning one bootable hard disk to another. If your only task is to clone one HD to another, Casper 6.0 (http://www.fssdev.com/products/casper/) does it quickly and flawlessly every time, at least that has been my experience from V.4 to the current V.6.0. It copies the total contents of the donor disk to the target disk exactly and precisely. If the donor disk was bootable, so will be the target disk. All of my disks are SATA3 and I'm now using Windows 7 32 bit. The only requirement is that the target disk must be equal to or larger in size to the donor disk. I believe that Casper has a free trial. I paid $49.95 for it several years ago and it is the best spent 50 bucks in memory. Let me state right here that I have no connection with Casper other than as a satisfied user for several years. ================================================== ================================================== ====== == Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London. :-) "John John - MVP" wrote in message ... 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 clipped |
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