How to know \Device\Harddisk#\DR# is which physical hard disk?
Under Windows environment, we are used to the drive letter such as C: or D: drive but the error in the Windows Event Viewer normally point out the faulty device in the different format \Device\?Harddisk#\DR# or \Device\HarddiskVolume# (e.g. \Device\Harddisk0\DR0). So, how can find/locate the correct hard disk / device?
Problem: The drive detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk0\DR0
Below are the example of event log:
Log Name: System
Source: disk Event ID: 11 Level: Error General/detail: The drive detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk0\DR0. |
Solution: To find the error disk \Device\Harddisk0\DR0
- Download WinObj from https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb896657.aspx
- Right-click on downloaded WinObj and run as administrator
- Search through \Device\Harddisk# until you find your faulty device (e.g. \DR0)
- You can see one or multiple Partition with SymbolicLink Type. (in my example, I got \Device\HarddiskVolume1 to 8 are belong to this device/disk). Note this down for the next step.
- Click on \GLOBAL?? in the left panel, then click on the “SymLink” column in the right panel in order to have the result sort in SymLink.
- Find / locate \Device\HarddiskVolume# value you found in the step #4
- You will notice that the name of the volume in the first column. There will be multiple entries that include volume GUID, drive letter, etc. From my result below, I can see that my C: drive is located in this \Device\Harddisk0\DR0 disk.
References & Resources:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb896657.aspx
http://serverfault.com/questions/153513/identifying-a-physical-disk-from-its-windows-device-description
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/159865