- Volume serial number
A volume serial number is a
serial number assigned to a disk volume or tape volume. It originated in 1950s inmainframe computer operating systems. InOS/360 line it is human-configurable, has a maximum length of six characters, is in uppercase, must start with a letter, and identifies a volume to the system in unique manner. For example "SYSRES" is often used for a "system residence volume".In FAT and
NTFS file system s, a volume serial number is a feature used to determine if a disk is present in a drive or not, and to detect if it was exchanged with another one. This identification system was createdFact|date=October 2007 byMicrosoft and IBM during their development ofOS/2 . The serial number is a 32-bit number determined by the date on the current computerClarifyme|date=October 2000& at the time of a disk's formatting. Previously, the method used to discern whether a disk was swapped was reading itsvolume label . However, it was not required to be unique or even non-empty. Many users had not given disks any name.References
*cite web|last=Glass|first=Brett|date=
1998-02-06 |url=http://www.brettglass.com/ttr19980206a.html|title=Changing a Disk's Volume Serial Number|work=Brett Glass To The Rescue|accessdate=2006-07-28
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