Cloning drives without replacing the Volume label/Volume Serial Number?

Levi_N · ‎12-01-2010

Is it possible to ghost/clone a drive to a new hard drive without overwriting the new hard drive's volume serial number?

Here is my situation: I have loaded XP and several third party programs onto a test station without licensing any of the programs. I then want to clone this test station as a "Golden" image, and then use the "Golden" image to clone 7 other test stations, where they would then be licensed with individual keys/serial numbers.

This works, however I found that after making the "Golden" image of test station 1 (TS1), and pushing the image to test station 2 (TS2), the volume label on the hard drive in TS2 was replaced with the volume label from TS1. This is causing a licensing issue with my third party software, as the software keys off of the volume label when registering the product. I need to be able to push the cloned image to a new hard drive without replacing that hard drive's volume serial number.

I am aware that some freeware applications can change volume serial numbers after the fact, but this is very problematic for me. It is very, very difficult to get freeware products approved for use within my program, so those options are effectively off the table.

So, is it possible, when restoring an image to a new hard drive, to leave the new hard drive's volume serial number in tact? Perhaps an option somewhere in the GUI that I'm overlooking?

Thanks in advance.

DaveH · ‎01-06-2010

I find it really odd that software would use the volume ID because it is so easy to change. I know microsoft uses it as one of the pieces of hardware for activation, but they use that in addition to several others. I would have thought something like the NIC address would be a better choice.

But I'm sure you checked to make sure it really is the volume ID and not the disk signature?

For anyone else unsure of the difference you can open a command prompt and type: vol

It will be listed as "Volume Serial Number".

I always thought that was part of the MBR, but doing a fdisk /mbr didn't change it for me.

When you say that "the volume label on the hard drive in TS2 was replaced with the volume label from TS1"

What was on TS2 previously? If it was an installation of XP perhaps you can try to restore the image without the MBR?

There are options where you can unselect the MBR and the disk signature.

Brian_K is the expert here, I haven't seen him for a couple days but when he returns I'm sure he would know.

As far as third party tools go, if it's any help there is a tool written by Mark Russinovich of Systernals that now belongs to Microsoft and is being distributed through technet.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897436.aspx

Best of luck,

Dave

Levi_N · ‎12-01-2010

Dave, thank you for the suggestions.

To answer your questions:

"But I'm sure you checked to make sure it really is the volume ID and not the disk signature?"

Yes, as an unofficial test we used a third party application to change the volume ID, which fixed our licensing issue. Unforunately we can't use this particular tool in an official capacity.

"What was on TS2 previously?"

These test stations came with XP installed on 4 hard drives in a RAID 1+0 configuration. We are breaking the RAID configuration and using 4 independent drives. For this reason we felt we needed to restore the MBR and disk signiture during the cloning process. Is that a correct assumption?

"As far as third party tools go, if it's any help there is a tool written by Mark Russinovich of Systernals that now belongs to Microsoft and is being distributed through technet."

Thank you for this suggestion! This may actually be an acceptable tool that we can use without going through our difficult freewrae acceptance process.

DaveH · ‎01-06-2010

Levi_N wrote:
These test stations came with XP installed on 4 hard drives in a RAID 1+0 configuration. We are breaking the RAID configuration and using 4 independent drives. For this reason we felt we needed to restore the MBR and disk signiture during the cloning process. Is that a correct assumption?

I think you would need to restore the MBR, I was hoping it was a plain vanilla install of XP before you deployed the new image.

As for the disk signature, I don't think you need it because XP doesn't use it to boot like windows 7 and vista do.

I still can't figure out where the disk ID is actually stored and I'mnot sure what parts of the MBR Ghost really replaces.

Brian is one of the most formost experts when it comes to these things, he's usually here every day unless he's gone fishing.

But in the meanwhile, since you only have 7 to do right now, you may try to get that tool approved.

Mark Russinovich works for microsoft now as a "senior fellow" and his tools and his work is well respected in the industry.

It's also a very small command line tool that needs no installation.

If you can't get approval for it maybe we can find where it really is and you have a hex editor or something that is already approved.

Dave

DaveH · ‎01-06-2010

I found where it is if it's any help.

If you look at this page here it explains where to find it, note that the location is different bepending on the file type.

I'm using a FAT32 partition in Virtual PC, the location is 0x43 where on a NTFS drive it would be 0x48.

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/system/change_drive_sn.aspx

It will take a while for my image to be approved but I circled the location when viewed with a hex editor.

Note how the data is kept in "little-endian" (hate it when they do that) It is written as "reverse pairs" from "back to front".

If you read the pairs in reverse order from right to left it comes out 1234-ABCD

Dave

Brian_K · ‎04-19-2009

Here is the location of the Disk Signature in LBA-0

DiskSig

From my tests (some time ago so I hope I haven't forgotten), when you ask Ghost to Restore MBR or Copy MBR it copies the First Track (LBA-0 to LBA-62) with the exception of the Disk Signature and the Partition Table. You have the option of restoring the Original Disk Signature when an image is being restored but Copy Drive doesn't copy the Disk Signature.

DaveH · ‎01-06-2010

I just got really confused. It happens easily.

I'm really not where I thought I was at all.

Your showing sector 0 of the physical drive, of course.

I was in sector 0 of the first partition, my dos box is covering it up but thats where it shows the error "NT Loader missing"

Next to where I circled "FAT" it says "NO NAME". thats where it would show the name of the C drive volume.

I'm in the boot sector of the partition, right?

Dave

Brian_K · ‎04-19-2009

DaveH wrote:

I'm in the boot sector of the partition, right?

Looks like it. It says sector 2048 which is the first sector of the first partition on the HD. (2048 sector aligned partition)

DaveH · ‎01-06-2010

OK, no wonder it gets copied. It's part of the partition.

I still find it odd that expensive software and microsoft use that, the XP product activation comes well after imaging disks became popular.

I figured out how to change it with ptedit. The version on the Ghost disk is crippled and won't let you look at the "boot record" section. But I have changed it by running ptedit from the recovery disk, as well as running the technet tool from the recovery disk.

I got to double check that, running the vol command didn't show it as changed until I rebooted for some reason.

Dave