5

I sold my old laptop to neighbours and it was stolen from them. Well i think i have found thief so i want to check his computer id and compare it to my old Launchpad bugs id. How in Launchpad i can find from my bugs:

  • Motherboard
  • HDD
  • Somthing else that can help identify it

Maybe how to recover or find some overwritten files (couse now there is windows)

I found in Launchpad one my bugs has LSPCI autogenerated from bug 682846 https://launchpadlibrarian.net/70611231/Lspci.txt but i dont see any id that can be used to identify specificly my comp. This can be used to identify many same models. Or i missed something in there?

And what commands should i use to get all identification on that comp in one go fast? Just lspci? How to get same lspci as it is in that Launchpad link? Now testing laspci on my computer i dont get so much info.

Also im now doing a search in my external hdd where i have many backups and maybe i have there result from lspci. So what containing keywords would help doing search with for small lspci and full reports ive done? I might have done sudo lshw > somefilename

Improve this question
1
  • lspci lists hardware devices connected via PCI bus. You can check for the ethernet & wi-fi devices MAC address. Those are unique.
    – Web-E
    Nov 22, 2012 at 8:35

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
1

Rather than doing something complicated, do you have the laptop's serial number? If you do, you could use that as proof. Alternatively, you could, as Web-E said, use the computer's MAC address.

Improve this answer
2
  • Nope its old comp so only somwhere in my external drive i could have lshw report in html but couldnt find so far. I cant think maybe of good name report could have or i have deleted it. MACs can be changed and where can i find them now i case they not changed on reinstallation?
    – Kangarooo
    Nov 29, 2012 at 11:41
  • 1
    In Windows, just run ipconfig in CMD. For Linux, its ifconfig | grep HWaddr. I doubt anyone who stole a computer would change the MAC address, unless they absolutely knew what they were doing, and it doesn't change when you install a new OS (I found that out when i switched my desktop from Windows to Ubuntu and went to change my DHCP table).
    – Spice
    Nov 30, 2012 at 4:53
1

Bluetooth has a MAC as well. Maybe you have the pairing still in a phone or similar device an you can get the MAC from there.

Improve this answer
2
  • It can be changed and computer can be reinstalled with something else. Right now suspicious computer is reinstalled with clean Windows XP.
    – Kangarooo
    Nov 29, 2012 at 11:42
  • As far as I know, yes, it is easy to change the MAC which the device is using, but not the MAC which is stored in the device (and is used every time you start the device and don't change the MAC). That may depend on the device of course.
    – Den
    Jan 31, 2013 at 3:41
0

You can get the laptop's serial number with dmidecode. That is only useful if you could get a copy of your purchase receipt.

sudo dmidecode -t system
Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .