Determine USB HDD Serial Number (NOT Volume Serial!)

[Connah]

Hi all! I'm sure many of you rolled your eyes at the subject trying to
recall how many times youv'e heard this question. But bear with
because I THINK my question is at least slightly different from the
typical post.

I would like to obtain the manufactuer's embedded serial number (NOT
the volume serial that changes with each format) of USB drives. I
found some very handy code to obtain a regular SMART-enabled IDE
drive's information in VB6 here:

http://vbnet.mvps.org/index.html?code/disk/smartide.htm

However, when I run that code, it does not give me any information
about, say, a flash drive that is connected to my USB port. Do all USB
drives (both external hard drives with movable parts as well as flash
memory drives) have an embedded serial number that can be accessed? If
so, how can I obtain that information in Visual Basic 6? In not VB6,
how about any other language?

My ultimate goal is to be able to give out some USB thumb drives or
external hard drives and be able to uniquely track them. ANY thoughts
towards my goal would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Matthew

 

[Uwe Sieber]

Hi all! I'm sure many of you rolled your eyes at the subject trying to
recall how many times youv'e heard this question. But bear with
because I THINK my question is at least slightly different from the
typical post.

Yes, because this is the wrong group.
microsoft.public.vb.winapi seems to be the right one.