Hard disk serial Key in user account

Hi. I have come across a problem to get Hard disk serial number. I’m googling it from past one week without much joy. I found many solutions. None of them were perfect. The most common problem, which I faced, is that the Hard disk serial number couldn’t be taken without admin permission in Vista. In Microsoft website the api is given which will return the Drive volume serial number. The problem is that once we format the hard disk the drive volume serial number will change. The other option is to use SCSI back door. But it is not available in Vista. The only option remaining is using S.M.A.R.T.. The Smart api doesn’t work properly in VB without admin permission. But it is possible in an exe created in VC++, where they read the hard disk code without admin permission. Is there any other method in VB where the Hard disk serial number and model number can be read?

Take a look at this its a "registration" system based on the users hard drive serial number, written by MartinLiss. You may find that there is something useful in there?

Thanks for the reply. But the details given there are similar to the Microsoft link provided above. The API returns a long value, which is the drive volume serial number rather than Hard disk manufacturers serial number. It changes from drive to drive and also after formatting the hard drive volume number will change. The manufacturers serial number doesn’t change even after we format the hard disk.

ah, Im sorry I couldnt help at all with that, have you seen THIS thread? post 14 specifically?

Thanks for the post. Yes, i did read it. The post 14 you told gives us the volume serial number of a drive which will change while formatting. The other posts also link to some codes but they will not work in Vista having UAC. it needs admin permission. which will not be available some times.

I will be honest I am not the best programmer, so please forgive me If I seem a little knowledgeless!

Does it work with UAC turned off?
If so I found THISthread, I dont know if it will be of any help. but after looking it up, apparently microsoft has set UAC up in such a way that it is very difficult for any 3rd party applications to disable the feature, or bypass it. However from what I have read, people have generated "injected dll's" (if that is the correct phrase) in which they can bypass UAC (I think thats moreso in .net) or turn UAC off.

i tested this as standard user in vista

vb Code:

Set WMIObjectSet = GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\.\root\CIMV2").ExecQuery("SELECT * FROM Win32_DiskDrive")
For Each WMIObject In WMIObjectSet
    MsgBox "hard drive " & WMIObject.Index & ": serialnumber " & WMIObject.signature
Next
Set WMIObjectSet = Nothing

Actually the problem is not just in Vista. It comes in XP also if the user does not have admin previllages (user account-Limited user). The thing is that I have a source code of a C++ exe where they will take it without admin previllages. This website gives a Dll which will fetch the Hard disk serial number. But the problem is the license. I cant use it in the software as the license is not compatible with it. Even if i purchase it, I cant redistribute the dll with my software. So i thought if there might be another solution where DLL can be used and redistributed.

Thanks for the post westconn1. WMI has certain problems in Vista. I already tried the solution and failed. Read this PDF for more details.

i tested this on an almost new vista (home premium) installation with no problem for a standard user

and also on an older vista basic system

Unfortunately the very first vista (home basic) I tried it had failed. So when I googled I got that pdf. Thanks for the reply. Is there any other method to get it?

check this thread in codebank
http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.p...+serial+number
may need modification to run in vista

It doesnt work in Vistal or in XP without admin permission. As it is concerned with registration i cant take the risk where the HD code is available for one user and not available for the other. I want to use this code for all my softwares which i will develop in future also.

The problem in the code is that the createfile api used requires admin permission. So if there is any other code to avoid create file and instead pass any other handle to the DeviceIoControl api it'll be very helpful. Thanks in advance.

Haven't seen the options given but won't using GetVolumeInformation API do the trick?

Code:

---

Private Declare Function GetVolumeInformation Lib "kernel32.dll" Alias "GetVolumeInformationA" ( _
                ByVal lpRootPathName As String, _
                ByVal lpVolumeNameBuffer As String, _
                ByVal nVolumeNameSize As Long, _
                lpVolumeSerialNumber As Long, _
                lpMaximumComponentLength As Long, _
                lpFileSystemFlags As Long, _
                ByVal lpFileSystemNameBuffer As String, _
                ByVal nFileSystemNameSize As Long) As Long

Private Sub Command1_Click()
    Dim volname    As String  ' receives volume name of C:
    Dim sn          As Long          ' receives serial number of C:
    Dim snstr      As String    ' display form of serial number
    Dim maxcomplen  As Long  ' receives maximum component length
    Dim sysflags    As Long    ' receives file system flags
    Dim sysname    As String  ' receives the file system name
    Dim retval      As Long      ' return value

    ' Initialize string buffers.
    volname = Space(256)
    sysname = Space(256)
    ' Get information about the C: drive's volume.
    retval = GetVolumeInformation("C:\", volname, Len(volname), sn, maxcomplen, _
      sysflags, sysname, Len(sysname))
    ' Remove the trailing nulls from the two strings.
    volname = Left(volname, InStr(volname, vbNullChar) - 1)
    sysname = Left(sysname, InStr(sysname, vbNullChar) - 1)
    ' Format the serial number properly.
    snstr = Trim(Hex(sn))
    snstr = String(8 - Len(snstr), "0") & snstr
    snstr = Left(snstr, 4) & "-" & Right(snstr, 4)
   
    ' Display the volume name, serial number, and file system name.
    Debug.Print "Volume Name: "; volname
    Debug.Print "Serial Number: "; snstr
    Debug.Print "File System: "; sysname
End Sub

---

Sorry. Thats the drive volume serial number. The problem with that is that it will change if you format the hard disk. So i will have to genearate the key again and give it. The manufacturers Hard disk Serial number will not change.