Do Macs store a serial number on the disk? About a year ago, I sold my old MacBook Pro. Last week I got a call from the buyer who said that it had been stolen and he didn't have the serial number — and did I have it?

I haven't been able to find it anywhere. It's not registered under my Apple ID (not sure it ever was). It was originally purchased from Amazon, and they don't put serial numbers on their receipts. I'm still looking for the original box.

OTOH, I do still have a disk image that I made of the drive immediately before I reformatted it, prior to the sale.

Is the serial number stored anywhere on that disk image?

What I've tried:


Searching my current MBP for my current serial number
I figured that if I could find a file with the current serial number, the old disk image might have that same file with the old number.
Searching for old system profiler reports
Sadly, I couldn't find one.


Anyone have any other ideas?
Apparently the only ways to find out a Mac's serial number (if you don't have the Mac physically present) are:

When you had the Mac, you:


Registered it with Apple (check your support profile at apple.com)
Ran and saved a copy of System Profiler's output


Without the Mac:


Have a sales receipt from a retailer that puts the serial number on their receipts
Purchased it from a retailer that keeps track of serial numbers
Find the box the Mac came in


Thankfully, after I posted this question, the buyer was able to find the original box, which gave him the serial number.

But the actual answer to the question is: No, Macs do not normally store their serial number in a disk file.