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I have several machines I have networked together and I use information about the motherboard to uniquely identify them. This is the Windows PowerShell code I use to get it:

>> $Manufacturer = Get-WmiObject win32_baseboard | select-object -expand Manufacturer
>> $Product = Get-WmiObject win32_baseboard | select-object -expand Product
>> $SerialNumber = Get-WmiObject win32_baseboard | select-object -expand SerialNumber
>> $UUID = (Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_ComputerSystemProduct).UUID
>> write-host $Manufacturer~$Product~$SerialNumber~$UUID
Micro-Star International Co., Ltd.~PRO B650M-A WIFI (MS-7D77)~To be filled by O.E.M.~FFFFFFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFFFFFFFFFF

However, one used motherboard I obtained recently has some unusual values for the serial number and the UUID.

Apparently the serial number got wiped somehow? It is being returned as To be filled by O.E.M.. And the UUID isn't working either; I'm just getting FFFFFFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFFFFFFFFFF.

I happen to have another motherboard that is the exact same model and I do get a unique serial number as well as a unique UUID when I run the same command on it.

This was a manufacturer (MSI) refurbished board that I bought used on Ebay. I'm not sure if this is typical behavior you would get on a refurbished motherboard?

Is there some way I can recover the serial number (ideally so that the win32_baseboard command returns it correctly) and/or generate a new UUID that stays with the motherboard?

EllipticalInitial
  • 1,800

3 Answers3

15

Apparently the serial number got wiped somehow? It is being returned as To be filled by O.E.M.. And the UUID isn't working either; I'm just getting FFFFFFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFFFFFFFFFF.

[...]

This was a manufacturer (MSI) refurbished board that I bought used on Ebay. I'm not sure if this is typical behavior you would get on a refurbished motherboard?

Honestly from what I've seen this is typical behavior you would get on a brand new motherboard, for a few certain manufacturers. There are OEMs that simply don't bother filling in the To be filled by O.E.M. fields – there is nothing to recover if there was nothing there to begin with.

grawity
  • 501,077
6

For motherboards that use an AMI BIOS there is a utility called AMIDEWINx64.exe that can change the serial number and UUID. I don't know if MSI uses an AMI BIOS, but if not they may have their own version of this utility.

I don't know how official the AMIDEWINx64 utility is, but a quick Google suggests it is easily downloadable. The MSI motherboard should have the serial number written on a sticker on the board somewhere, or if the sticker is gone I guess you could just add one to the serial number from the other MSI motherboard.

There is another tool called DMIEdit that can apparently do the same thing. I cannot vouch for the provenance of this either, but I note that Schenker have it on their website for their laptops. The version for the AMI BIOS is here.

John Rennie
  • 613
3

Have you tried using the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address

Doubt you'll be able to "recover" anything considering there probably is nothing to recover

In regedit go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\HARDWARE\DESCRIPTION\System\BIOS

You can fill in whatever information you like for System Manufacturer and SKU (see pic)

enter image description here