Vol (command)
| Company type | Command-line utility |
|---|---|
| Industry | Operating systems |
| Founded | MS-DOS version 2 |
| Products | Displays volume label and volume serial number of logical drives |
In certain operating system environments, the vol command is utilized within command-line interfaces such as COMMAND.COM and cmd.exe. Its primary function is to reveal the volume label along with the volume serial number associated with a logical drive, which may include partitions on hard disks or floppy disks.
Implementations
This command appears across a range of operating systems including various iterations of DOS,[1] DR FlexOS,Cite error: The opening <ref> tag is malformed or has a bad name IBM/Toshiba's 4690 OS,Cite error: The opening <ref> tag is malformed or has a bad name IBM OS/2,Cite error: The opening <ref> tag is malformed or has a bad name Microsoft Windows,Cite error: The opening <ref> tag is malformed or has a bad name and ReactOS.Cite error: The opening <ref> tag is malformed or has a bad name
Within MS-DOS, the vol command has been accessible since version 2.[2] Additionally, Paragon Technology Systems' PTS-DOS 2000 Pro provides its own version of vol.Cite error: The opening <ref> tag is malformed or has a bad name
Moreover, Windows' dir command incorporates volume label and serial number details when listing directories.
The command is also integrated into the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) shell environment.[3]
Syntax
vol [Drive:]
Parameters:
Drive:Identifies the specific drive letter for which the volume label and serial number should be displayed.
Notes:
- On Windows platforms, volume serial numbers are shown only for disks formatted using MS-DOS version 4.0 or newer.
- The OS/2 implementation permits specifying multiple drives simultaneously;
voloutputs their volume labels in sequence.
IBM OS/2
<syntaxhighlight lang="text"> [C:\]vol C:
The volume label in drive C is OS/2. The Volume Serial Number is 0815:1611. </syntaxhighlight>
Microsoft Windows
<syntaxhighlight lang="doscon"> C:\Users\root>vol C: Volume in drive C is Windows Volume Serial Number is 080F-100B </syntaxhighlight> If there is no volume label assigned to drive C:, the message "has no label" replaces the usual label name.
Supported file systems
See also
- Label (command) — Tool for modifying disk volume labels.
- List of DOS commands
Further reading
- Jim Cooper, Special Edition Using MS-DOS 6.22, Third Edition, Que Publishing, 2001.
- Tim O'Reilly, Troy Mott, Walter Glenn, Windows 98 in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference, O'Reilly, 1999.
- John Paul Mueller, Windows Administration at the Command Line, John Wiley & Sons, 2007.