Serial Number: Not Applicable?

[e3six]

Okay, found my way here when searching for a way to recover a machines missing serial number. The post that brought me, is pretty dated so... does anyone have means to recover serial numbers profiler is calling "not applicable"?

The machines I'm dealing with run the list of who's who in Apple models; from iMac's to Towers, in both the G3 and G4 families- running OS9.x.

The whole problem started with my netOctopus Admin not seeing all the agents on the network. For an instant, a device would list, but would quickly be replaced by another machine on the network. My best guess is that netOctopus is getting confused by like machine models with "not applicable" serials. But if anyone should have other ideas on this particular matter, please chime in.

Regardless, I'd love to know how to recover those serials, outside of opening every machine and searching them out.

Thanks in advance.

 

[TEG]

Which Serial, the Machine's Serial, or the MAC address of the machine.

The serial number is located on the back of the case, and in most cases, so is the MAC address.
On CRT iMacs, its locate on the side, next to all the ports.

I'd also try a software update to 9.2.1 or 9.2.2 to try to get the profilier to report the serial/MAC address.

Also, if you were running OSX, you could also get the System Serial and Mac Address in the "About this Mac" window. Just an FYI.

TEG

 

[e3six]

I was looking for the machine serial.

I do realize the info is located physically on the machines, but my concern is why profiler doesn't display it anymore. If I could get profiler to retrieve the info as it should, then when I install netOctopus, the agents will automatically grab the serial and model color info from the profiler. This will save me the time manually performing this task for what Institution machines are returning "not applicable" serial numbers via the profiler.

The original post that lead me to this forum spoke of an Application for OS9 that would retrieve the info... anyone still around that has it?

Thanks for the input TEG.

 

[TEG]

If the OS cannot see the serials, do an archive and reinstall. That is the safest way to recover that info. Also, run some disk utilities, sometime that data gets lost in b-tree errors.

TEG

 

[e3six]

The thing is, the machines are fresh- well, freshly installed with a standardized image. I'd assume that the image restore is what's killing the serial info in profiler? I don't know.

But essentially, the machines are getting this image restored and updated with the latest netOctopus agent I'm running. I'm also running Norton's 8 on the machine to repair any B-Tree errors. Still no proper feedback from profiler.

Guess I could try reformatting one of the machines straight from a factory disc to discern if it in fact is the restore image causing the profiler "not applicable" info.

Thanks again for the input.

Still hoping someone has the elusive application I've heard about.