VOGONS


Disk Serial

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First post, by eparrast

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How I get the serial number from a disk?

Reply 2 of 15, by eparrast

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If I use label, it say invalid command

Reply 4 of 15, by eparrast

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Sorry about that.
I am trying to run an app that ask for the serial number, in DosBox
Thanks for your help

Reply 5 of 15, by leileilol

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Check:
- Box
- Disk jacket, or jewel case
- Manual

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Reply 6 of 15, by eL_PuSHeR

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Open a cmd.exe instance in windows and type

vol x:

where X: is the drive number. Also -> right mouse button -> properties should display the label.

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Reply 7 of 15, by Jorpho

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After DOS 5.0 floppy disks did actually get a unique "Volume Serial Number" when they were formatted; you can still see this number for your hard drive when you use "dir" at the XP command prompt. But oddly enough, I have yet to encounter a game that used a floppy's volume serial number for copy protection purposes. I guess it was a rather obscure feature.

Anyway, the OP is clearly not looking for one of these serial numbers or for a volume label, but rather for a copy protection code that, as Mr. leileilol suggests, would be in the box or manual.

Reply 8 of 15, by eparrast

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Thanks for all your help.
This is an accounting app. I have a Windows 7 64, I will like to use this accounting app with DosBox.
When I use the installation disk I need to find the Serial Number of the physical disk of the pc, and the app looks for it with Vol in XP.
How I look for that serial in DOSBOX.?
Thanks for your help

Reply 9 of 15, by lightmaster

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you can't unless you run some old dos shareware or freeware utility

Reply 10 of 15, by Jorpho

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I see. Alternatively, you could run MS-DOS 6.22 (or some other suitable version of DOS) within DOSBox.

Reply 11 of 15, by ripsaw8080

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As I explained in your other thread on this subject, the volume serial number of mounted drives in DOSBox is 0000-1234. However, most apps should be able to determine this information through DOS function calls, so you must have an app that doesn't do that for some reason.

When you say the app uses Vol to get the serial number, are you saying it executes the command and redirects the output into a file or something so that it can read the serial number? If so, VOL is an internal command in real DOS, and you could make a batch file called VOL.BAT which DOSBox will execute in place of the internal command that it does not support. The batch file could echo out the same kind of information as a real VOL command, thus perhaps getting the app to accept the mocked up output.

Reply 12 of 15, by eparrast

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Yes that is exactly what it does. It reads the serial number with vol, and then authorized the app to run, it saves this serial in a file and reads it every time it runs. How do you do the bat file. I try with Vol and it hangs DosBox.
Thanks for your help

Reply 13 of 15, by wd

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Read what ripsaw wrote, you'll have to fake the output of VOL somehow.

Reply 14 of 15, by eparrast

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I need to run it from inside DosBox

Reply 15 of 15, by ripsaw8080

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Based on the output from VOL in MSDOS 5, it's a bit tricky to get it perfect using ECHO commands in the batch file, because you have little control over newline characters. I made a mock up that looks correct using two files, attached to this post in a zip file.

The volume label in the output is the one DOSBox assigns to the C drive unless you use another, and the serial number is always the same. Just extract the files into the working directory of the app, and with luck it will accept the output as a real VOL command.