Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised May 27, 2026

Vol (command)

vol is a shell command that reports identifying information about an accessible volume including its label and serial number.

Last revised
May 27, 2026
Read time
≈ 2 min
Length
449 w
Citations
10
Source
vol
DevelopersDR, Microsoft, IBM, Toshiba, ReactOS Contributors
Initial releaseMarch 1983 (1983-03)
Operating systemMS-DOS, PC DOS, MSX-DOS, FlexOS, SISNE plus, OS/2, eComStation, ArcaOS, DR DOS, ROM-DOS, 4690 OS, PTS-DOS, Windows, FreeDOS, ReactOS
PlatformCross-platform
TypeCommand
The ReactOS vol command source ↗

vol is a shell command that reports identifying information about an accessible volume (a.k.a. logical drive) including its label and serial number.

The command is available in shells COMMAND.COM and cmd.exe.1 It is available in various operating systems including versions of DOS,2 FlexOS,3 4690 OS,4 OS/2,5 Windows,6 ReactOS,7 PTS-DOS 2000 Pro,8 and EFI shell.9 In MS-DOS, it is available in versions 2 and later.10

The dir command also displays the volume label and serial number (if any).

Use

The command reports information about the volume associated with the working directory by default. If a drive letter is specified, then the command reports information about its associated volume. On Windows, the volume serial number is displayed only for disks formatted with MS-DOS version 4.0 or later. OS/2 allows the user to specify more than one drive.

Examples

In OS/2, the command line vol C: reports the label as "OS/2" and the serial number as "0815:1611" like:

The volume label in drive C is OS/2.
The Volume Serial Number is 0815:1611.

In Windows, the command line vol C: reports the label as "Windows" and the serial number as "080F-100B" like:

Volume in drive C is Windows
Volume Serial Number is 080F-100B

If drive C: had no label, "has no label" would have shown instead of "is Windows".

Supported file systems

See also

See also

References

References

  1. MS-DOS and Windows command line vol command
  2. Jamsa, Kris A. (1993), DOS: The Complete Reference, Osborne McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0078819040.
  3. "FlexOS™ User's Guide" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-09-25.
  4. "Unknown".
  5. "JaTomes Help - OS/2 Commands". Archived from the original on 2019-04-14. Retrieved 2019-07-21.
  6. Microsoft TechNet Vol article
  7. "Reactos/Reactos". GitHub. 4 November 2021.
  8. "PTS-DOS 2000 Pro User Manual" (PDF). Buggingen, Germany: Paragon Technology GmbH. 1999. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2018-05-12. Retrieved 2018-05-12.
  9. "EFI Shells and Scripting". Intel. Retrieved 2013-09-25.
  10. Wolverton, Van (2003). Running MS-DOS Version 6.22 (20th Anniversary Edition), 6th Revised edition. Microsoft Press. ISBN 0-7356-1812-7.
Further reading

Further reading

External links