Quick answer: Open Command Prompt and run vol C: (use any drive letter). Windows prints a line like Volume Serial Number is 6A2F-1C9E. That eight-digit hex code is created when the drive is formatted and belongs to the partition, not to the physical disk. For every drive at once, run Get-CimInstance Win32_LogicalDisk | Select-Object DeviceID, VolumeSerialNumber in PowerShell. If you need the disk’s factory serial number instead, use Get-PhysicalDisk | Select-Object FriendlyName, SerialNumber.
Applies to: Windows 11 and Windows 10, for internal drives, USB flash drives and memory cards. Reading the number needs no admin rights; changing it does.
In this guide
What the volume serial number is
Every formatted volume (a partition with a drive letter, such as C: or a USB stick) gets a serial number from Windows at the moment it’s formatted. It’s shown as two groups of four hexadecimal characters, for example 6A2F-1C9E.
- It identifies the volume, not the computer or the physical disk. A disk with three partitions has three different volume serial numbers.
- Formatting changes it. Format a USB drive and it gets a new number; reinstall Windows with a clean format and C: gets a new one too.
- Cloning keeps it. A sector-by-sector clone or disk image copies the volume serial number, so two PCs restored from the same image can report the same value.
- Some older software and license checks use it to tell drives apart, which is why people go looking for it.
Find it in Command Prompt
Press Win + R, type cmd and press Enter. Then run vol followed by the drive letter:
vol C:The output looks like this:
Volume in drive C has no label.
Volume Serial Number is 6A2F-1C9EReplace C: with D:, E: and so on for other drives. Running dir shows the same line at the top of its output. If you see The device is not ready, the drive letter has no formatted volume (an empty card reader, for example); if the drive doesn’t show up at all, see “We couldn’t find any drives”.
For the full 64-bit serial of an NTFS volume, run fsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo C: from an administrator Command Prompt and read NTFS Volume Serial Number. The last eight hex digits are the number vol shows.
Find it in PowerShell (all drives)
Right-click Start, choose Terminal (or Windows PowerShell on Windows 10) and run:
Get-CimInstance Win32_LogicalDisk | Select-Object DeviceID, VolumeName, VolumeSerialNumberYou get one row per drive letter. PowerShell prints the serial without the hyphen, so 6A2F1C9E is the same number as 6A2F-1C9E. Drives with nothing in them show an empty serial.
Older guides use wmic logicaldisk get name,volumeserialnumber. It still works where WMIC is installed, but Microsoft has deprecated WMIC and newer Windows 11 builds don’t include it by default, so the PowerShell command is the safer choice.
Volume serial vs the disk’s hardware serial
These two get mixed up all the time, and they’re unrelated:
- Volume serial number: eight hex characters, set by Windows when the partition is formatted, changes on reformat. Found with
vol. - Hardware (disk) serial number: set by the manufacturer, printed on the drive’s label, never changes. Found with the command below.
Get-PhysicalDisk | Select-Object FriendlyName, MediaType, SerialNumberWarranty claims and support tickets want the hardware serial. Some USB flash drives and card readers report a blank or generic hardware serial; that’s a limitation of the device, not a Windows fault.
Change a volume serial number
Windows has no built-in command to set a volume serial number. You have two options:
- Reformat the drive. This creates a new random serial but erases everything on it. For USB drives and cards, see how to format a USB drive to FAT32 or how to format an SD card.
- Use Microsoft’s Sysinternals VolumeID. Download it from Microsoft’s Sysinternals site, extract it, open Command Prompt as administrator in that folder and run
volumeid C: 1A2B-3C4D(your drive letter and any eight hex digits). On NTFS volumes the new number appears after a restart.
Before you change it: back up important files, and know that software or license activations tied to the old number may stop working. Change it only when you have a reason, such as two cloned machines clashing in an app that relies on the serial.
Related guides
- Format USB to FAT32 in Windows 11 and 10 (over 32 GB)
- How to format an SD card in Windows
- System Volume Information access denied: what it is and how to open it
- “We couldn’t find any drives” during Windows setup: how to fix it
Official sources: for more detail, see Microsoft’s own pages:
Frequently asked questions
Is the volume serial number unique?
Usually, but not guaranteed. It’s generated at format time, so two drives formatted separately almost never match. Cloned or imaged drives do share it.
Does reinstalling Windows change it?
Only if the C: partition is formatted or recreated during setup, which a clean install normally does. A Reset this PC that keeps files doesn’t format the drive, so the number stays.
Can I find the serial of a drive without a letter?
Not with vol. Assign a letter in Disk Management first (right-click the partition, Change Drive Letter and Paths), then run the command.
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