Investigate The Volume Serial Number!

[Google]

1.Let's say I want to buy a used 500GB HD from someone I know...
2.And he told me that the HD is new (ma sarlou shi sheri)...
3.So I want to check if this person is saying the truth...
4.Therefore I need to know the time when was the last format of the HD...

How to find that time?
The answer is: I need to check the Volume Serial Number Format...

Go to the DOS and type "VOL" ...
You will a serial number similar to this: 3578-1d02
What is this?

" The volume serial number was introduced with DOS 4.0 as part of an
extended boot record and is created through you either FORMAT a disk or use DISKCOPY to create another disk. The serial number is a function of the time/date of the formatting or the diskcopying. Note that DISCOPY generates a new volume serial number so a DISKCOPY is not an exact image of the source diskette. "

Calculating the Volume Serial Number:
For example, let's say that a disk was formatted on 19 October 2003 at 22:33 and 27.01 seconds.
DOS takes the date and time just before it writes it to the disk.
The low order is calculated:
Month & Day ===> 10/19 ===> 0a13h
Sec & Hundrenths ===> 27.01 ===> 1b01h
0a13h + 1b01h = 2514h
The high order is calculated:
Hours & Minutes ===> 22:33 ===> 1621h
Year ===> 1995 ===> 07d3h
1621h + 07d3h = 1df4
So the Volume Serial Number is: 2514-1df4

Decoding the Volume Serial Number:
It is a little bit complicated, I'm not gonna talk about it now, there is a small program that do this job, download it from here!
NB: See the examples in the examples.txt that comes with the program...

That's all...I hope you enjoyed this tutorial... and ..."it's all about hex" :P

Edit:
By the way, there are also tools that change the Volume Serial Number...
So the person I'm going to by the HD from can be smarter than me and change the Volume Serial Number... :P

[Sogelec]

GR8 One And really its a necessity to know such info
Eddie ed3e ma ykoon Azka lol

[FriendOfZeus]

Thanks bro, that will come in handy.