Obtain the serial number of the external hard drive, need help

[ferrmask]

Hello,
I have a problem that needs help. I use the following code (in the attached file) to obtain the serial number of an external hard drive (through the USB interface), but it can not give the result or the result is incorrect.

When connected to the SATA port:



When connected through a USB adapter:



With some other code:



It is still connected through the usb adapter, other programs still give good results:



Thanks,

Best regards

Code:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tQc...ew?usp=sharing

[Zvoni]

According to this https://stackoverflow.com/questions/...rddrive-in-vb6
"152D20337A0C" might be your Serial-No, but you have to decode it

[dilettante]

The archive linked to seems to have been grabbed from this thread:

http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.p...r-Admin-Rights

I haven't had a reason to go back to revisit this, but reading the thread again it sounds like the code may only be a problem when run on XP or earlier. Since XP is dead now it is hard to get too worried about it.

[ferrmask]

Hello Everyone,
[Zvoni] Thank you, I checked, "152D20337A0C" is the InstanceID of Hard Disk Box Adapter, it does not change with all hard drives

[dilettante] Thank you, This happens with every version of Windows. I think it seems that Hard Disk Box Adapter has caused the returned information to be misleading.

Best regards

[Zvoni]

Well, everything i could find uses WMI, so, there....

[ferrmask]

Well, everything i could find uses WMI, so, there....

Thank Zvoni, I tried with WMI, and the information returned is also the InstanceID of Hard Disk Box Adapter

[Elroy]

Here's something I'd be interested in knowing: Does that Western Digital tool work with a non-WD USB hard disk? I bet it doesn't.

So, we really need to re-frame your question. Is what you want the serial number of Western Digital USB drives? But even that might be quite difficult, and here's why. The Western Digital corporation certainly knows how to communicate with their drives at a very low-level. In other words, their Data Lifeguard Tools program is quite possibly going directly to their hard drive to get the information, and not going through Windows API calls. To do that from another program, you'd need to know very detailed (quite possibly proprietary) information about how to communicate with the drive's firmware. And I seriously doubt you're going to find information on how to do that from anybody except some Western Digital firmware specifications sheet.

And then, when you're all done, it probably won't work on other USB hard drives from other companies like Hitachi, Seagate, Toshiba, etcetera, as they'll all have different protocols for communicating directly with their firmware.

You need to find an example of some code that uses standard API calls (possibly digging something out of the registry similar to a monitor's EDID information) before this will become standardized.

Good Luck,
Elroy

[ferrmask]

Here's something I'd be interested in knowing: Does that Western Digital tool work with a non-WD USB hard disk? I bet it doesn't.

So, we really need to re-frame your question. Is what you want the serial number of Western Digital USB drives? But even that might be quite difficult, and here's why. The Western Digital corporation certainly knows how to communicate with their drives at a very low-level. In other words, their Data Lifeguard Tools program is quite possibly going directly to their hard drive to get the information, and not going through Windows API calls. To do that from another program, you'd need to know very detailed (quite possibly proprietary) information about how to communicate with the drive's firmware. And I seriously doubt you're going to find information on how to do that from anybody except some Western Digital firmware specifications sheet.

And then, when you're all done, it probably won't work on other USB hard drives from other companies like Hitachi, Seagate, Toshiba, etcetera, as they'll all have different protocols for communicating directly with their firmware.

You need to find an example of some code that uses standard API calls (possibly digging something out of the registry similar to a monitor's EDID information) before this will become standardized.

Good Luck,
Elroy

Hi Elroy,

I tried Western Digital's tool with a variety of different hard drives, and it all yielded accurate results. And not only WD, some other drive tools (eg CrystalDiskInfo, HD Tune ...) also get the Serial Number of USB hard drives.

I really feel very stuck on this issue. Is there any way for messages to go through Hard Disk Adapter Box to reach the Hard Disk?

Best regards,
ferrmask