Correlate Windows drive letters to physical drives?

[Carson Dyle]

I have a Win2k3 file server with 14 JBOD drives (6 on mobo, 8 on a SuperMicro PCIx controller) of different sizes and models. Occasionally I run into a problem with a particular drive, like slow transfer rates or even Windows dropping the drive altogether. When this happens, it's often difficult to figure out which physical drive is having problems.

I've used a couple different SMART utilities, but each is somehow lacking in giving me the needed information. CrystalDiskInfo doesn't list all drives. Not sure if it's a problem with the SuperMicro controller, or the SM backplanes that I use. Another SMART utility sees and reports all drives, but it doesn't show the drives' serial numbers that would allow me to identify the physical drive.

Any good utilities out there? For this task it doesn't even need to display SMART status. I just need to see the drive model and serial number and the Windows drive letter or number.

 

[tweakboy]

Use SpeedFan

google that in and use that. gl

 

[Carson Dyle]

I have SpeedFan installed on the server. I'll take a look.

Edit:

No luck. It fails on two levels: It doesn't see any of the drives attached to the SuperMicro controller and it doesn't display drive serial numbers.

 

[Zap]

HD Tune seems to be able to do it, under the Info tab. See how it lists the volume (includes drive letter) and towards the bottom lists the serial number. I don't know if it will work with various controllers, but worth a try.

(Thanks to Legit Reviews for the image.)

 

[Elixer]

Don't know if you want to do this, but you can always keep open disk management.
That shows everything you want, and updates when things drop out.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Don't know if you want to do this, but you can always keep open disk management.
That shows everything you want, and updates when things drop out.

I haven't seen serial numbers in disk management (at least, not in Win2k3 Server). Serial numbers are necessary if you have more than one of a given model of drive.

I'm looking for any software that will work in Windows. Short of pulling a hard drive and seeing which one is no longer present in Windows, I haven't found anything.

 

[corkyg]

"I haven't seen serial numbers in disk management (at least, not in Win2k3 Server). Serial numbers are necessary if you have more than one of a given model of drive."

Why not just give them different volume names?

 

[Nothinman]

I have a Win2k3 file server with 14 JBOD drives (6 on mobo, 8 on a SuperMicro PCIx controller) of different sizes and models. Occasionally I run into a problem with a particular drive, like slow transfer rates or even Windows dropping the drive altogether. When this happens, it's often difficult to figure out which physical drive is having problems.

I've used a couple different SMART utilities, but each is somehow lacking in giving me the needed information. CrystalDiskInfo doesn't list all drives. Not sure if it's a problem with the SuperMicro controller, or the SM backplanes that I use. Another SMART utility sees and reports all drives, but it doesn't show the drives' serial numbers that would allow me to identify the physical drive.

Any good utilities out there? For this task it doesn't even need to display SMART status. I just need to see the drive model and serial number and the Windows drive letter or number.

14 JBOD drives in a single machine is just insane regardless of the OS, this is why they make SANs and such. Most SANs and real servers have an option to "blink" a specific drive so you can correlate a failure message with a physical drive without any guesswork.

You could try running smartmontools/smartctl on Windows, I know it gives the serial number and everything else on Linux but haven't needed it on Windows.

But give that this seems to be a recurring problem, why haven't you documented which Windows volume is which physical drive? Good documentation would seem to be a pretty important requirement with a setup as unwieldy as yours seems.

 

[Carson Dyle]

"I haven't seen serial numbers in disk management (at least, not in Win2k3 Server). Serial numbers are necessary if you have more than one of a given model of drive."

Why not just give them different volume names?

I can probably do that, but I'm still faced with tying the drives seen in Windows management to each physical drive. If that can't be done through software then it still means doing some trial-and-error drive pulling and rebooting to associate the drives with volumes. But it should only need to be done once, so that may be a solution.

 

[lowboyee]

I can probably do that, but I'm still faced with tying the drives seen in Windows management to each physical drive. If that can't be done through software then it still means doing some trial-and-error drive pulling and rebooting to associate the drives with volumes. But it should only need to be done once, so that may be a solution.

Simple. Just put a file like C-drive.txt, D-drive.txt, etc. on each HD, shut down your computer, and then look inside each HD for the files.

 

[DarkRogue]

Are all the HDD's from different manufacturers as well?
I know with WD drives at least, they have some WD Diagnostic tools that should give you the serial numbers of all the WD drives. This may help you track down some of the drives at least.

I'm not sure if Seagate and the others have anything similar, but it's worth a shot if you really want to map out the drives.

I have 5 HDD's in my system and it was already annoying to figure it out, so I finally mapped it out and put a little sticker on the drives to indicate which drive letter they corresponded to.

 

[WildW]

Am I the only person who puts little sticky labels on the back of my hard disks so I can figure out which is which?

edit: ::doh:: Never mind. . . I should've actually read the previous post 😛

 

[corkyg]

I also place ID tags on drives - but also change the volume labels so that they can be identified on screen distinctively when the physical labels are not visible.

Here is my latest - a pair of Samsung SSDs mounted in Lenovo drive caddies, ready to use. They are ID'd by numbers on the pull tabs.

 

[jhansman]

"I haven't seen serial numbers in disk management (at least, not in Win2k3 Server). Serial numbers are necessary if you have more than one of a given model of drive."

Why not just give them different volume names?

Exactly. My external, when I fire it up, shows up in Explorer as "External Drive (L)," named as such in Disk Mgmt. Drive letter never changes, which is fine with me.

 

[Carson Dyle]

I've gone the route of naming the volumes after the drives, to include the model number and enough of the serial number to identify each uniquely. The drives are labeled externally in their carriers with the same model and s/n info. It wasn't a terrible amount of work tying drives to the volumes, since I only had to do it for a few of the drives attached to the SuperMicro controller.

The only drawback to doing this is that the drive list in Windows Explorer becomes a bit of a mess visually. I don't really need the volume names in Explorer, as being able to see them in disk management is more than sufficient for the purposes of troubleshooting. But it's not a big deal for a server, since I only occasionally need to remote in to the machine, with most file access through network shares.

Thanks for all the ideas.

 

[KillerBee]

not sure if they had it in win2k3 but in Win7 "System Information" shows disk serials
Programs > Accesories > System Tools > System Information

or try running "msinfo32" from command prompt

 

[Carson Dyle]

not sure if they had it in win2k3 but in Win7 "System Information" shows disk serials
Programs > Accesories > System Tools > System Information

or try running "msinfo32" from command prompt

> Components > Storage > Disks (or Drives)

No, I don't see them. I don't see them in Windows 7, either. Both show volume serial numbers (in the Drives info), but those are internal Windows identifiers, not the manufacturers' serial numbers.

 

[KillerBee]

You sure are picky - lol

This may do what you want - from the CPUZ makers
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/pc-wizard.html

I'm too lazy to verify it's the actual serial# but for one of my disks it shows:

Manufacturer : Western Digita
Model : WDC WD10EADS-65L5B1
Serial Number : WD-WCAU488XXX

be careful not to let it install the "Ask" toolbar stuff - unless you really want it