Windows – Identifying a physical disk from its Windows device description

diskmanagementhard drivewindows

I have intermittent bad block errors in my Windows SBS 2003 system event log. The error description is The device, \Device\Harddisk4, has a bad block, and I would like to be able to authoritatively say which physical disk that is. Or in other words, can someone tell me how to authoritatively determine which physical disk a \Device\HarddiskX description refers to?

I belive it may be that the Harddisk4 maps to "Disk 4" in the Disk Management utility, but I have not found any reference saying that it is so in so many words.

My system configuration is as follows, from a Disk Management perspective, and all SATA disks:

Disk 0: Windows C: (actually a hardware mirror)
Disk 1: Data D: (software mirror with Disk 2)
Disk 2: Data D: (software mirror with Disk 1)
Disk 4: My Book G: (Western Digital 1TB USB disk, used for nightly backups)
CD-ROM 0: E: (DVD Writer)
CD-ROM 1: WD Smartware (Virtual drive on WD 1TB disk, no letter assigned)

I have spent some time searching, but the only info I have found is to "look in disk management" but that is not definitive enough for me to say "this disk is faulty".

Best Answer

as per http://support.microsoft.com/kb/159865

In disk management Disk x refers to \Device\Harddiskx

So unsurprisingly it is your portable HD that had the bad block.