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Utility To Relate Physical Drive To IDE Channel?

  • Thread starter (PeteCresswell)
  • Start date
P

(PeteCresswell)

Flightless Bird
Tim Meddick was kind enough to take the time and effort to tell
me how to do this myself - but I figure if I can do it, somebody
may have written a little utility to do it a lot faster/easier.

So... does anybody know of a utility that will relate physical
hard drives to IDE Channels (as listed in Device Manager).

It would need to return the drive's "Drive n" number, serial
number or GUID.

Windows seems to like to return drive model numbers - which is
useless when there are many drives of the same make/model.
--
PeteCresswell
 
V

VanguardLH

Flightless Bird
(PeteCresswell) wrote:

> Tim Meddick was kind enough to take the time and effort to tell
> me how to do this myself - but I figure if I can do it, somebody
> may have written a little utility to do it a lot faster/easier.
>
> So... does anybody know of a utility that will relate physical
> hard drives to IDE Channels (as listed in Device Manager).
>
> It would need to return the drive's "Drive n" number, serial
> number or GUID.
>
> Windows seems to like to return drive model numbers - which is
> useless when there are many drives of the same make/model.


diskpart - a command-line utility to get/change disk and partition setup

Run 'diskpart'. Then start using the 'list' command to see what you can
select. Use 'select' to pick a disk (or a partition after you select a
disk). The 'detail' gives some info. There might be other commands
that will give more or different information. Some details include
which bus, the device's LUN (logical unit number), and should show the
disk signature (when you select the disk and run the 'detail' command).

I've used diskpart maybe all of twice in the last decade. After loading
diskpart and in its shell, enter 'help' to get a list of commands. I
believe you can use "diskpart /s <scriptfile>" to run a whole slew of
canned commands that get passed to diskpart.
 
Y

Yousuf Khan

Flightless Bird
On 07/09/2010 8:32 PM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
> Tim Meddick was kind enough to take the time and effort to tell
> me how to do this myself - but I figure if I can do it, somebody
> may have written a little utility to do it a lot faster/easier.
>
> So... does anybody know of a utility that will relate physical
> hard drives to IDE Channels (as listed in Device Manager).
>
> It would need to return the drive's "Drive n" number, serial
> number or GUID.
>
> Windows seems to like to return drive model numbers - which is
> useless when there are many drives of the same make/model.


Not sure why you would want to know which IDE channels relate to which
drives. Windows itself only knows them as Drives 0, 1, 2, etc. Modern
SATA drives don't even conform to this primary vs. secondary, master vs.
slave arrangement either.

But if you do want to know quickly, the best way to do it is to use
Device Manager, go to the View menu, Devices By Connection, click on
Microsoft ACPI PC, PCI Bus. Under this you should see at least one if
not more "Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller". Click on them, and
you'll see which drives are connected to which controllers.

Yousuf Khan
 
T

Tim Meddick

Flightless Bird
(Did you notice my very last post on your [other] thread?)

(It basically says that I overlooked the use of the Windows "Disk
Management" console)

(Again; just type : DISKMGMT.MSC ...into the "Run" box)

(Then look at the *lower* boxes, which represent physical disk drives, and
also represent any volumes they may have on each them.)

(And so displays links between the hardware of diskdrives and any
drive-letters)

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London. :)
 
P

(PeteCresswell)

Flightless Bird
Per Yousuf Khan:
>
>Not sure why you would want to know which IDE channels relate to which
>drives.


One of them seems tb throwing CRC errors - which causes Windows
to downgrade the access method from UDMA to PIO after the sixth
error.

The UDMA/PIO thing is visible through Device Manager | IDE
ATA/ATAPI controllers - with one controller listed for every two
drives ("Drive 0" and "Drive 1" under each controller).
--
PeteCresswell
 
P

(PeteCresswell)

Flightless Bird
Per Yousuf Khan:
>But if you do want to know quickly, the best way to do it is to use
>Device Manager, go to the View menu, Devices By Connection, click on
>Microsoft ACPI PC, PCI Bus. Under this you should see at least one if
>not more "Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller". Click on them, and
>you'll see which drives are connected to which controllers.


Problem is that it displays the drive model name and not
something like serial# or GUID which is unique to the drive.

I've got a number of drives with the same model name ("WDC
WD20EADS-00R6B0", for instance)... so there seems tb no way to
distinguish between them.

viz: http://tinyurl.com/2ekpppv


Tim's methodology promises that ability. I was just trolling
for a packaged implementation.
--
PeteCresswell
 
P

Paul

Flightless Bird
(PeteCresswell) wrote:
> Per Yousuf Khan:
>> But if you do want to know quickly, the best way to do it is to use
>> Device Manager, go to the View menu, Devices By Connection, click on
>> Microsoft ACPI PC, PCI Bus. Under this you should see at least one if
>> not more "Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller". Click on them, and
>> you'll see which drives are connected to which controllers.

>
> Problem is that it displays the drive model name and not
> something like serial# or GUID which is unique to the drive.
>
> I've got a number of drives with the same model name ("WDC
> WD20EADS-00R6B0", for instance)... so there seems tb no way to
> distinguish between them.
>
> viz: http://tinyurl.com/2ekpppv
>
>
> Tim's methodology promises that ability. I was just trolling
> for a packaged implementation.


I still don't think you're getting all the value from the free
HDTune program. One of the tabs in that program, shows the
current running conditions for the drive. Try the "Info" tab.
In that window, you'll see a list of the partitions on that
drive. And further down, the "active" field shows the current
transfer rate (i.e. PIO). Using that tab, you should be
able to figure out which drive is it. Even the serial number
of the drive is listed in that window. Lots of info.

Paul
 
P

(PeteCresswell)

Flightless Bird
Per Paul:
>I still don't think you're getting all the value from the free
>HDTune program. One of the tabs in that program, shows the
>current running conditions for the drive. Try the "Info" tab.
>In that window, you'll see a list of the partitions on that
>drive. And further down, the "active" field shows the current
>transfer rate (i.e. PIO). Using that tab, you should be
>able to figure out which drive is it. Even the serial number
>of the drive is listed in that window. Lots of info.


Got it.

But I've already reset the PIO to UDMA. I knew which controller
it was in Device Manager's Devices by Type view and wanted tb
able to backtrack to the SN or GUID.

Sounds like I'm fighting Mother Nature on this one.

But going forward - i.e. once the PIO thing crops up again - I
will know to use HD Tune's Info tab and/or Tim's observation
about Device Manager | View | Devices By Connection."

Thanks.

BTW, somebody recommended another utility called Hard Disc
Sentinel that's looking pretty good to me also. It presents
some information on all drives concurrently - which is good for
we of limited grey matter.....

Also, the other details refresh automatically as one walks the
list of physical drives.

I've already identified one drive with a potential cooling issue
and another with something SMART calls "Unstable Sectors" which
seem like a problem in the making. Both of those probably are
identifiable in HD Tune but they stood out better in Hard Disc
Sentinel so that I - as one of the clueless - noted them.
--
PeteCresswell
 
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