How To: Get Serial Number of USB Flash Drive

Using the CMD prompt in Windows 10 or 11, it is a one line request to get the serial number of a USB flash drive. The serial number in question is the device serial number which follows the device and will be the same serial number to identify the physical device. This serial number is written into read-only memory on the flash drive and cannot be duplicated or deleted or modified. This is different than the volume serial number which we talk about from a previous post.

Steps are very simple:

# Insert a flash drive (or multiple)

# Select a flash drive by clicking on the drive letter

# In the Explorer path field type cmd

This will open the Command Prompt

# Copy the text below and click Enter

wmic path Win32_USBControllerDevice get Dependent | find “USBSTOR”

This request is asking Windows to search the computer for any Mass Storage devices (flash drives) connected to the computer USB Host Controller on the motherboard.

You do need to parse some information out because more than a serial number is given.

The serial number of the USB flash drive is listed last and there is a &0 at the end which is not part of the serial number. The hardware serial number can range in length so we don’t have a guideline for how long it should be. Typically we see serial number lengths range from 8 to 30 alpha-numeric values.

Using a 3rd party program, you can see the serial number of the USB flash drive matches that of the cmd prompt request.