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Thread: hard drive serial number

  1. #16
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    Originally posted by DrMDJ
    To get that number you need to issue something like the low level ATA command Identify Drive.
    Ok, very good. I did some more research on the web as well. I am convinced from all the responses that the hard drive serial number can be changed and is not secure at all.

    I really appreciate everyone's time and help in this regard.

    DrMDJ, I would like to know more about low level ATA commands and how to use them. Any resource that you can post to point me into the right direction?
    my code doesn't break, it only bends

  2. #17
    DrMDJ is offline Virtual PC Specialist!!!
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    Wanted to see if I could dig up a somewhat specific/detailed example of what needs to be done. Figured that would be better than just referring ya to the ata/atapi command specs and/or something on the Identify Drive/Device subcommand, etc. I managed to find one set of source code that might fit the bill. Its a mix of C and assembler, but that's what would be needed. Within the context of some other things its doing the code does provide the information of the Identify Drive command. The code examples can be found here.

    Even though your other code is VB something like this could be incorporated to return the necessary info.
    Please remember to post back whether your problem is resolved or
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  3. #18
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    Originally posted by DrMDJ
    Even though your other code is VB something like this could be incorporated to return the necessary info.

    You are da man! I already changed my code to use the c++ object and it works great. The only pain that I may need to go thru is to update all my clients but I am wondering if I should even bother to make this change retroactive.

    Thanks for all your help every1!!!
    my code doesn't break, it only bends

  4. #19
    DrMDJ is offline Virtual PC Specialist!!!
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    Excellent. Glad it worked out.
    Please remember to post back whether your problem is resolved or
    not, so that others may gain from the knowledge.

  5. #20
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    hard drive serial number

    maybe you could use the mac address ?

  6. #21
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    This is a 2½ year old thread folks.
    Nick.

  7. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by SuperSparks
    This is a 2½ year old thread folks.
    But thanks for your input TechFobe and
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  8. #23
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    Cool Don't link security to hardware

    I noticed that this discussion has been posted a while back, however I want to put in my two cents of worth for any body running into this thread.

    Yes you can edit the hard drive serial number, and I have a DOS POS program that is still sold today that does exactly that. This program was written well over a decade ago and stil is going strong (might be because it looks a lot like a Windows program).I later sold this program and source code to another company, and was ask to write them a Windows update as well. The same approach was use in the Windows version of this program on the new owners insistence. However in my opinion this is not a good idea to protect your program in this manner, nor are any method that makes use of any hardware serial number. The reason being that it is a logistic nightmare to keep the legal users up to speed if they do have a legitimate hardware change for any reason whatsoever. It is OK to support a couple of hundred user but very BAD when you have thousands of users.

    My advice is to rather brand the product extensively with the legal user name. Very few people will use software in their company if another company's name is splashed all over it(Remember your printed output as well)

    Pirates will always be with us, rather figure a way to let them work for you than against you. If your software is worth its' weight in gold people WILL buy it. Any pirated software with your name on it will eventually lead to new sales if your program is worthwile and not over priced.

  9. #24
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    I am not really sure why companies go through all this trouble trying to protect their software from piracy.., seeing as no matter what they do, there is a crack for any software popular at all within days, this is espesically true for games...

    so bascally, the people who will pay, will pay, and the people who won't, get it for free off BitTorrent once it is cracked.

  10. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by pcgroen
    I noticed that this discussion has been posted a while back, however I want to put in my two cents of worth for any body running into this thread.

    Yes you can edit the hard drive serial number, and I have a DOS POS program that is still sold today that does exactly that. This program was written well over a decade ago and stil is going strong (might be because it looks a lot like a Windows program).I later sold this program and source code to another company, and was ask to write them a Windows update as well. The same approach was use in the Windows version of this program on the new owners insistence. However in my opinion this is not a good idea to protect your program in this manner, nor are any method that makes use of any hardware serial number. The reason being that it is a logistic nightmare to keep the legal users up to speed if they do have a legitimate hardware change for any reason whatsoever. It is OK to support a couple of hundred user but very BAD when you have thousands of users.

    My advice is to rather brand the product extensively with the legal user name. Very few people will use software in their company if another company's name is splashed all over it(Remember your printed output as well)

    Pirates will always be with us, rather figure a way to let them work for you than against you. If your software is worth its' weight in gold people WILL buy it. Any pirated software with your name on it will eventually lead to new sales if your program is worthwile and not over priced.
    Are you sure you are talking about the same thing here?

    There are two serial numbers associated to the HD. One is in hardware, in HD firmware, the actual drive serial number. The other is a volume or partition number that is randomly created when you partition or format the drive. The drive serial can't be changed and/or erased, the other will. If you are infact talking about the one stored on the firmware/hardware, can you provide any links?

    Anyway, this has worked great for me. Most of the installations are done my myself. The number of my customers is not very small but not very large yet either. I have created a utility that basically takes any HD serial number as input and generates a registry file with encrypted information. This registry must be merged with the computer on which the product is being installed for the product to be registered.

    The logins are bound to compare the HD serial number with the encrypeted serial number and encrypted install/expiry date stored in the registry. The info in the registry represents the serial number of the drive the product was installed on and it must match (when decrypted) with the actual hd when loging in.

    This did wonders for me in regards to my customers with monthyl installments. The registry stores encrypted expire dates also. It displays expiry reminder on the main screen along with the HD Serial Number (not the Volume Serial Number). I used to have a hard collecting money from them every month. Now, my customers pay my bill way ahead in advance to give me extra time to create a new registry file and to send it to them.
    Last edited by masif; June 14th, 2005 at 04:51 PM. Reason: typo
    my code doesn't break, it only bends

  11. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by Byan
    I am not really sure why companies go through all this trouble trying to protect their software from piracy.., seeing as no matter what they do, there is a crack for any software popular at all within days, this is espesically true for games...

    so bascally, the people who will pay, will pay, and the people who won't, get it for free off BitTorrent once it is cracked.
    Anyone wants to try? I will write a quick vb program that uses my authentication module and send it to anyone who is up for it. This is not a challenge. I am just curious and want to see if it really is crackable.
    my code doesn't break, it only bends

  12. #27
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    Sorry to bring this thread from the dead again. Has anyone tried changing the hard drive serial number (not the xxxx-xxxx volume serial number) for a virtual machine (Virtual PC)? Thanks.

  13. #28
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    I just had a quick look then, and it doesn't seem to be stored anywhere -- it's not in the .vmc file (which is just XML), and I couldn't see any reference to it in the .vhd specification.

    Are you sure it's not just a constant value or something?
    Safe computing is a habit, not a toolkit.

  14. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tuttle
    I just had a quick look then, and it doesn't seem to be stored anywhere -- it's not in the .vmc file (which is just XML), and I couldn't see any reference to it in the .vhd specification.

    Are you sure it's not just a constant value or something?
    Thanks for responding. Could it be "Unique ID" on page 7 of the .vhd specification document?

    I couldn't even open my .vhd in a text editor - it is too large. Any ideas on that?

  15. #30
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    Try opening it in a Hex editor. I like WinHex, or here are some freeware ones:

    Hackman

    Free Hex Editor

    Freeware Hex Editors
    Nick.

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