How do I determine which HD is involved in the Event Viewer?

Solution 1:

DR means "drive removable", 5 is the USB host controller ID assigned by Windows.

Each usb port will be assigned a different number when being used, sorting out which is which is difficult.

The system internal hard drive will be Harddisk0, ask your daughters what was plugged in at the time of the bsod.

Source of Information See posts by Leo Huang farther down the page and is marked with green.

Solution 2:

In HarddiskN, the N is the same number as the following 1 & 2:

1. Run as Administrator: "disk management" aka diskmgmt.msc

The N is the same in disk management's labeling "Disk N" and event viewer's HarddiskN

2. diskpart command line tool (requires elevated privs). Type list disk. The 'N' in "Disk N" listed here also the same as HarddiskN.

Type sel disk N

Then type detail disk

And it will list which volumes are on that disk.

3. Sysinternals WinObj from microsoft. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/winobj

Download, extract and run as administrator.

It's a 2 step process:

Left pane under Device should be all the HarddiskN listed.

Click on one of them, and in the right pane under symlink note the HarddiskvolumeN labels.

Back to the left paine under GLOBAL??. Sort right pane by symlink and find your HarddiskvolumeN labels.

One should have a drive letter, like C: or E:

EDIT: Also How to identify drive device from log?

Solution 3:

The Harddisk# and DR# numbers both refer to a Drive - this is normally a physical drive (HDD, SSD, USB) - each Drive may contain multiple partitions each of which may have a drive letter.

The Harddisk# number matches the Disk# ID number shown by the Windows Disk Management utility. Harddisk# numbers are allocated sequentially in real time as disks are detected or connected. For internal HDD's the allocated number normally remains tied to a particular physical drive - assuming internal cable connections remain the same. For USB removable drives things get more confusing - the next available # number is allocated during connection (filling gaps if present) - if a drive is disconnected the number is removed leaving a gap - once a drive is disconnected there is no record of previously allocated numbers. Therefore matching a historical Harddisk# ID to a physical internal drive is possible - but for USB removable drives the # number only implies how many drives were present in addition to the fixed drives.

The DR# number is also dynamically allocated but follows different rules - numbers are allocated sequentially for all fixed and removable drives at detection or connection - however numbers are not reused while Windows is booted. Each time a removable drive is disconnected and then reconnected the DR# number increments. The numbers are NOT tied to USB port numbers as implied in the previous posting.

Initially the Harddisk# and DR# number will match - as both assign the next available sequential number. But active use of removable drives (such as repeated use of multiple USB flashdrives) will cause the DR# numbers to increment far above the associated Harddisk# number. The longer Windows remains booted the higher the DR# numbers can rise - only when Windows restarts does the DR# number allocation get reset - the DR# number is not reset during User Logoff events only at a Windows Restart.

For physical internal drives the two numbers generally remain fixed and identical. But for USB removable drives there is no way to tie a DR# number to a physical device - a removable drive may have been allocated many different DR# numbers even during a single booted session.

The Microsoft SysInternals utility WinObj.exe displays the currently assigned ID's via the Device section of the tree (requires "Run As Administrator" privileges).