Menu
homeBreakdowns

How to find out the ID of your hard drive. How to change the serial number of a hard drive

Read, how to determine the serial number of a hard drive or volume without getting up from your chair, using the command line. When purchasing or upgrading a PC, users think about which components are most important to them. Based on this choice, most of the purchase budget is spent on more important components, and the remaining components are selected according to the principle - the cheaper, the better. The most significant component of the system is the hard drive. It stores all the information on your computer.


Content:

The device serial number is flashed into the firmware by the manufacturer and cannot be changed.

Volume serial number


The volume (logical device) serial number is different from the device number and is created when the disk is partitioned. To get the number, launch the command line by pressing the Windows + R key combination, then type cmd and press Enter. At the command prompt, enter:

You must replace c: with the drive letter where you want to find the serial number. In addition to the serial number, the command displays the disk label, if one is specified. To change the serial number of a partition, you can use special programs to repartition the disk into partitions.

To better understand this article, we first need to clarify the situation. There is a little confusion with the term "hard drive serial number". Due to an inaccuracy in the translation, this is the designation for both the unique identifier “Volume ID”, which is assigned to a logical partition during formatting, and the serial number “Serial Number”, which is written into the disk chips when it is assembled at the manufacturer’s factory. The Volume ID parameter is very often used by various protections to link installed programs to a specific computer. If the hardware configuration changes, a hardware failure occurs, or the system is reinstalled and the hard drive is formatted, such programs will have to be activated again, and it is far from a fact that the savage share cookers will not demand to pay for the license again. The combination of Volume ID and Serial Number values ​​is more often used in various anti-cheats for online games to identify users by hardware configuration and ban violators.

To change the Volume ID, there are several utilities that make it easy to change its value to the desired one. In this way, you can save program registrations associated with hardware or a specific external drive.



The most convenient, in my opinion, program with a beautiful interface. Working with it is very simple: select the disk, enter the new serial number, restart the computer. After rebooting, the disk is displayed with a new serial number.

Hard.Disk.Serial.Number.Changer.zip (294,808 bytes)




A little less convenient, but also with a graphical interface, is the Volume Serial Number Changer utility. Its main value is that it is distributed along with the source code. If suddenly someone wants to create their own utility to change the serial number of a disk, then you can use ready-made solutions.

Volume.Serial.Number.Changer.1.2.zip (22,695 bytes)




For console lovers, there is the VolumeID utility from the famous company Sysinternals. With its help, you can view the existing or specify a new serial number of any disk. A reboot is required for the changes to take effect.

VolumeID.2.01.zip (42,506 bytes)


The disk serial number can be changed not only with ready-made utilities, but also manually using some hexadecimal editor that can work with disks. I warn you right away that all the steps described below should only be performed if you clearly understand what you are doing. Careless work directly with the file system can lead to loss of information on the disk!



First you need to find out the current Volume ID of the disk. This can be done using any of the utilities described above or in the console with the DIR command.



Next, open the disk for editing in a hexadecimal editor. In the search, we specify the serial number; on the disk it is written in reverse order (Little-Endian DWORD format, if that tells you anything).



The serial number is found, switch to editing mode and change its 4 bytes to the required ones, writing them in exactly the same reverse order. There is no need to change anything else anywhere!!! We save the changes, restart the computer and get a new serial number of the hard drive. This method should only be used as a last resort.

The Serial Number of a disk cannot be changed using software; it is hardcoded into the disk itself. I don’t rule out that it can somehow be changed using specialized equipment in service centers, but I won’t say so. It is on this constancy of the Serial Number value that advanced hardware bindings are based. But the tricky ass came up with a screw here, smart people came up with the so-called Hardware Spoofers, that is, programs that replace information about the installed hardware at the driver level. When the protection queries equipment parameters, it receives false data.



PB DownForce replaces the Serial Number of the hard drive and the MAC address of the network card of your computer. Values ​​can be set either random or fixed. The original settings are restored after the system is rebooted. The program works at the driver level, so it only works on 32-bit systems. Due to the way PB DownForce works, some antiviruses perceive it as malicious; use it or not - decide for yourself, your paranoia does not interest me.

PB.DownForce.0.3.3.1.rar (2,215,588 bytes)


None of these utilities gives a 100% guarantee that tethered protection will be successfully neutralized, since the hardware can be checked using other parameters. But if you simply replace the hard drive on your computer, this may help.

Hard Disk Serial Number Changer is a small portable utility that allows you to change the serial numbers of SSD and HDD volumes. Moreover, this same number can be entered manually or let the program generate it independently. No special knowledge is required to work with it. Upon completion of work, the user will only need to restart the computer.

Let us immediately clarify that by serial number we mean “Volume ID”, which is assigned to a disk volume during formatting. Changing the "Serial Number" that is written into the disk chips at the factory is a much more complex process that cannot be accomplished without damaging the hardware of the media.

So, why is there a need to change Volume ID? Most often, it is used by people who want to bypass the protection of some programs and games, which is tied to the volume number. The use of such a binding, along with a binding such as a MAC address, is a completely normal practice among software developers. That is, by changing the Volume ID, theoretically it will be possible to “reset” the trial period of some programs (but not all). But there is also the other side of the coin. Current licenses are also linked to the volume serial number. Thus, having honestly paid for the license of any program and activated it on your computer, you have every chance of losing activation after using Hard Disk Serial Number Changer. So use the program entirely at your own risk!

Key Features and Functions

  • change the volume number (Volume ID) in just a couple of clicks;
  • the ability to independently select the desired number, as well as its generation automatically;
  • launch from portable media without installation on a computer;
  • convenient selector of the desired volume;
  • brief instructions for choosing the correct number;
  • the need to restart the computer to apply the changes;
  • very simple and intuitive interface.