Is there a portable (fast) program to make catalogs / lists / an image of the file names and folders (not of their content) of external drives / hard disks like Treesize? So when those drives are not plugged in I could see their files / folders in such a program.
I have search for days and tried many programs, but none of them where useful, "Locate" included, "IndexYourFiles" also.
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Open a Command Prompt window and enter a DIR command for the external drives.
For example, if the external drive is mounted as F:
dir F: /s > MyFdrivesfiles.txt
Choose whatever file name you like for the F: drive so long as it ends with .txt. To see what you have on the drive double click on the file, it will open in Notepad.
Ed
Many thanks, Ed.
Yes, that works, but it is very slow, I have about 1 mio. files on I:, it lasts very long until the list is finished. Treesize does it very fast.
Many thanks again.
Windows 10 Home, 64bit
Since you've mentioned Treesize, have you tried Treesize Free Portable?
Yes, yes, of course, that is why I know how fast it is. I cannot find a way to (usefully) safe the catalog, the result after scanning a drive.
Windows 10 Home, 64bit
File / Print works here
Wm
That's very great, thank you. Where can I get it (if it is a program)?
Windows 10 Home, 64bit
In Treesize, Use "File/Print Report" menu options.
Thank you, Gord,
Yes, but that would be extremely inconvenient, you would have to open / save one single sheet for each hard drive. And such a print view just would show the folders, files like you can see them in Treesize, so there are no sub folders and files displayed in folders, it is like a screenshot.
Many thanks again.
Windows 10 Home, 64bit
It can be found here:
https://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/virtual_volumes_view_portable
I have a few external drives myself and had trouble "remembering" what's where.
I am using this tool for quite some time now and i think it's brilliant.
It catalogs the content of drive's (I even use it for certain internal folders),
has a good search function and is very fast.
Hope this helps ...
Many thanks, dropsis,
for the link also.
Yes, I had tried it already. That's strange, the problem had been it is extremely, senselessly slow on my system, cannot use it. I just try again, scanning C:, about 150.000 files, after 20 minutes it still scans "Documents and Settings", may be it sticks there. Treesize needs a few seconds, IndexYourFiles may be 1, 2 Minutes or so. After stopping it, some minutes does not seem to happen anything, 20 % CPU use, cannot access it. I closed it with the Task Manager after 15 minutes.
May be I use wrong settings, but there are not that many...
Many thanks again.
Windows 10 Home, 64bit
I have external hard drives, which contain more than 100.000 files (mostly pics), but VVV scans the drives in less than minute.
The drives are USB3 drives and are connected via USB3 port on a normal system (not "high end"), OS ist Windows7.
Don't know about the settings. I use pretty much the "standard" settings (at least i think so).
I can look into that later.
This program just does not run properly on my system, respectively I cannot get it running sensefully, don't know why.
I left the settings like they were, now I unchecked all of the items in the tab "Audio files", no improvement.
No, I guess, I cannot use that program.
Many thanks for your help, dropsis
Windows 10 Home, 64bit
Absolute times aren't very useful but to give you and idea on a HDD with about 325K files
TreeSize a few minutes
WinDirStat ~10m
VVV ~20m
Presuming your disk is in good health have you tried getting rid of junk with a suitable tool (CCleaner portable from Piriform is my tool of choice) and defragging (I use SmartDefrag portable available very near by) ?
Other people will have their preferred tools but the idea is the same.
Wm
Thank you very much.
<<<<Absolute times aren't very useful
Why? What using else?
<<<WinDirStat ~10m
VVV ~20m
Yes, not that fast.
<<<Presuming your disk is in good health have you tried getting rid of junk with a suitable tool (CCleaner portable from Piriform is my tool of choice) and defragging (I use SmartDefrag portable available very near by) ?
Unfortunately such programs never have brought me any advantage using them, but may be have caused some disadvantages. Why is it good to use such a program regarding the use of such an index / catalog program?
Many thanks again.
Eidt: oops, some text is not shown.
Windows 10 Home, 64bit
Absolute times are too system specific, relative times, e.g. VVV about 2 * WinDirStat should give a better indication of what to expect.
I don't see why 20mins is here or there, once the catalog is created it is very fast. I am using VVV for my external drives and also for some remote systems that I don't always have access to. I hadn't used it before as I thought it was mainly for media files which I have hardly any of so thanks for the heads up dropsis.
If you are going to catalog a drive it makes sense to get rid of crap first, why catalog rubbish?
Further there are a number of clues in what you have said above that all may not be well with your system. The obvious place to start is to check disks and defrag.
I'm presuming you have an NTFS file system on your system HDD. What FS is on the external drives?
Wm
Alright, I understand.
Yes, it is NTFS, on all of my drives (e.g. some external hard disks like WD MyBook 4TB, WD Elements 4TB, etc.)
<<<<I don't see why 20mins is here or there, once the catalog is created it is very fast.
On my stystem I didn't manage it to let it create a complete catalog at all, but as it runs that slowly...
Windows 10 Home, 64bit
TreeSize seems to purposely go for fast and therefore must lack detail. I think you are making a mistake if you use that as a base for all others as it doesn't look very carefully at your disk and presumes a lot.
This is not the thread for tech detail as you seem to press kill way to early for any analysis to be useful
.
As a base you should consider dir (as mentioned above) and tree from dos command lines as minimal traversal tools. WinDirStat (and my new favourite tool VVV) are better because they give you better results. READ THAT AGAIN PLEASE, sorry for shouting, sort of.
Let us know when your disks are all singing sweetly
Wm
<<<TreeSize seems to purposely go for fast and therefore must lack detail. I think you are making a mistake if you use that as a base for all others as it doesn't look very carefully at your disk and presumes a lot.
Actually it would be enough (as long it works fast) I would be satisfied just to have the file names catalogized and may be the file size, some dates.
<<<This is not the thread for tech detail as you seem to press kill way to early for any analysis to be useful Sad .
Well, it took such a long time and e.g. VVV didn't show what it is doing (and if it is doing anything at all, just gets milky) so...
<<<As a base you should consider dir (as mentioned above) and tree from dos command lines as minimal traversal tools.
Even they do need very long...too long...e.g. DirectoryLister is very fast...by the way, oh well, may be you should also check Disk Exporer Professional 3, a free program, you can "install" it portably. Faster than VVV and better, I guess.
<<<<As a base you should consider dir (as mentioned above) and tree from dos command lines as minimal traversal tools. WinDirStat (and my new favourite tool VVV) are better because they give you better results. READ THAT AGAIN PLEASE, sorry for shouting, sort of.
No, no, I am still carefully listening.
<<<Let us know when your disks are all singing sweetly
Yes, I will.
Windows 10 Home, 64bit