** Update **

The WMI Class Properties Inspector sample application mentioned in this post is now available in the PowerBuilder section of CodeXchange.

I inserted a 32GB SanDisk USB flash drive into a USB port, which my PC running Windows 10 Pro promptly recognized and made available as logical drive E:. It is listed as a removable disk drive in the Win32_DiskDrive WMI class:

A serial number is shown for the flash drive (circled above) as well as the Plug-and-Play (PNP) Device ID (also circled above). I do not know why you are not seeing the serial number property in your case.

Since the serial number for the flash drive appears to be present in the PNPDeviceID property value, you should be able to parse this string to obtain the desired value. Please note that property values of type String are encapsulated in double-quote characters. Also, if the string itself contains a double-quote character, the string will instead contain a backslash-double-quote combination, and a backslash character will be represented by a double-backslash combination. The above images are from a new, general-purpose WMI class properties inspection application I've been working on and will post in CodeXchange soon. This app removes the encapsulating double-quotes and the "escape'd" double-quote and backslash characters, which is why the values in the screen shots appear "normal".

I'm not a WMI expert...far from it, actually. If you need WMI-related help, I suggest you post a question on a Windows developer forum.

HTH

Regards, John

John Fauss

After working with your diskproperties utility, I found small corrections need to be done when listing the serial number of (external) USB flash drives.  [It applies only to USB flash drives only and doesn't affect when fetching data for fixed hard disk].

The serial numbers are still needed to be extracted from 

PNPDeviceID                      SerialNumber
USBSTOR\DISK&VEN_JETFLASH&PROD_TRANSCEND_16GB&REV_8.07\035703RN&0 0 
USBSTOR\DISK&VEN_JETFLASH&PROD_TRANSCEND_32GB&REV_1100\64FSVTV19XPJ7HZ2&0 AA00000000000485 

For the two USB Flash Drives that I tested I got the serial numbers like 0 and AA00000000000485, but the actual serial numbers are 035703RN and 64FSVTV19XPJ7HZ2.  These two values are part of the PNPDeviceID that this utility lists.

Hope you can check at your end and let us know the results.

Happiness Always
BKR Sivaprakash

Thanks Mark ... works great!   :-)

As promised, attached is a small, single-window sample application (developed using PB 2017 R3) that demonstrates how to obtain the properties (including the serial number) of logical disks and physical disk drives.

I've used the PB OLEObject object, which utilizes COM, to interface with the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) service. No external functions are used. This uses a different approach than what Mark has done, which is not to imply is is any better or worse... it's just another way to accomplish the objective. You should be able to adapt the technique I've used to obtain other kinds of information out of WMI, but I haven't had a chance to do so, yet.

There may or may not be security/policy implications for accessing WMI information... I don't know and haven't looked into that.

Of course, I'd love to get feedback. If this proves helpful to anyone, I can post this sample app in CodeXchange so that others can find it easily.

Enjoy. Stay safe!

Hi everyone,

As John Fauss mentioned you could accomplish this utilizing C#/ .Net and even PowerShell. Below are a couple of additional ways to obtain the serial number:

1) Using the Run() function and passing it the WMIC command; this is the less desirable way as it sends the output to a file which then has to be parsed but it can be done by using regular FileOpen etc. commands and parse what you need (I assume one knows how to do this so code not included). It would look as follows:
   String ls_command
   ls_command = 'cmd /c wmic diskdrive where "name like ' + "'%PHYSICALDRIVE0%'" + '" get  name,SerialNumber > driveinfo.txt'
   Run(ls_command)

2) The second way is preferred and is implemented using an OLEObject connecting to MSScriptControl.ScriptControl with VBScript...all inside PowerScript. It looks as follows:

//Declare necessary variables
OLEObject ole_wmi
Any la_DiskDrives[]
string ls_information

//Connect to OLEObject and build the function
ole_wmi = CREATE OLEObject
ole_wmi.ConnectToNewObject("MSScriptControl.ScriptControl")
ole_wmi.Language = "VBScript"
ole_wmi.AddCode('Function rtnDiskDrives()~r~n' &
+ 'DIM objDiskDrives(2)~r~n' &
+ 'strComputer = "."~r~n' &
+ 'Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")~r~n' &
+ 'Set colItems = objWMIService.ExecQuery("SELECT name, SerialNumber FROM Win32_DiskDrive")~r~n' &
+ 'For Each objItem in colItems~r~n' &
+ 'If objItem.Name = "\\.\PHYSICALDRIVE0" Then ~r~n' &
+ 'objDiskDrives(0) = objItem.Name~r~n' &
+ 'objDiskDrives(1) = objItem.SerialNumber~r~n' &
+ 'End If~r~n' &
+ 'Next~r~n' &
+ 'rtnDiskDrives = objDiskDrives~r~n' &
+ 'End Function')

//Call the function
la_DiskDrives[] = ole_wmi.Eval("rtnDiskDrives")
ole_wmi.DisconnectObject()
DESTROY ole_wmi

//Present the information about the harddrive
ls_information = "Disk Drive: " + string(la_DiskDrives[1]) + "~r~n" + &
 "Serial Number: " + string(la_DiskDrives[2]) + "~r~n"
MessageBox("Harddrive Information", ls_information)

In the above examples I'm assuming the drive required is Physical Drive 0 but it could be any drive on the system and both of the above approaches could be modified to include all drives.

I look forward to seeing your approach John and how you went about it, which OLEObject you used etc.
HTH.
Regards,
Mark

Hi Luis;

  You can grab the code right out of the STD Framework ... for example:

  Here is a list of the most recent framework release features ...

http://chrispollach.blogspot.com/2021/01/2020r2.html

  For the HD stuff, have a look in the "nc_app_controller_master" object class within the "STD_FC_Base.pbl" library and review the HD code in the "of_set_powerbuilder_environment_info" method.

  Feel free to grab any relevant code you need.

HTH

Regards ... Chris

Hi, Luis - 

I'm not sure why you are using the ANSI flavor of the GetVolumeInformation API function.

Setting that aside for the moment, if you are trying to obtain the manufacturer's serial number of the physical disk drive, the GetVolumeInformationA/W API function will probably not get you this info. From the online Windows documentation on the GetVolumeInformationW API function:

This function returns the volume serial number that the operating system assigns when a hard disk is formatted. To programmatically obtain the hard disk's serial number that the manufacturer assigns, use the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) Win32_PhysicalMedia property SerialNumber.

It appears that accessing information in WMI is more complex that simply invoking an API function.

Regards, John

How do you use GetVolumeInformation?

Maybe you have to use unicode function GetVolumeInformationW?

Have you seen this?

https://www.rgagnon.com/pbdetails/pb-0214.html

https://www.topwizprogramming.com/freecode_filesys.html