(Msg. 17) Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2008 1:56 pm
Post subject: Re: Is there a hard drive file organizer that will ... [Login to view extended thread Info.] Archived from groups: microsoft>public>win98>gen_discussion (more info?)
In message <sa78g4hh81gdhr2k51vndb81dm429id32l.DeleteThis@4ax.com>, Franc Zabkar
<fzabkar.DeleteThis@iinternode.on.net> writes
[]
>>http://www.david-taylor.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/software/disk.html#FindDuplicates
[]
>That looks like a nice program but I've been running it all day and
>it's still only a fraction of the way through the comparisons. However
That is the problem I've found with it; it also slows down the PC a bit
when it's been running a while. The solution is just to hit the stop
button; it checks files in descending order of size, so by the time it
has slowed to a crawl, it will have compared the large files. (I've seen
it spend ages comparing a 44 byte file!) When you hit the stop button,
you _don't_ lose what it has found so far. Once you've dealt with those,
you can set it going again, and (assuming you've not _left_ big
duplicates in place), it will start with the remaining duplicates, back
at its higher starting speed.
EasyCleaner, from http://personal.inet.fi/business/toniarts/ecleane.htm
(which is a free set of utilities I think anyone should have anyway)
includes a duplicate finder which I think uses the same engine as
FindDup, but starts with the littlest files. (I have a feeling it might
not have the slowdown, either.)
>that is probably a reflection on my poor housekeeping. In any case it
>seems to me that the author would benefit greatly by using 98Guy's
>approach, ie calculating and comparing MD5 checksums. IIRC, FastSum
>took less than 30 minutes on my 450MHz box.
[]
For finding "what's eating my disc", I haven't come across anything to
beat Steffen Gerlach's Scanner, from
http://www.steffengerlach.de/freeware/
; this is what I can only describe as a hierarchical piecharter, and you
should try it. Of course, it must be rubbish, as it's only a 164K
download ... There's also a piecharter in David Taylor's area (same page
as FindDup IIRR), and as part of EasyCleaner (again, I think uses David
Taylor's code), and you can go up and down the levels in those, but I'm
not aware of anything that has a hierarchical display like Scanner.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL(+++)IS-P--Ch+(p)Ar+T[?]H+Sh0!:`)DNAf
Lada for sale - see www.autotrader.co.uk
This trip should be called "Driving Miss Crazy" - Emma Wilson, on crossing the
southern United States with her mother, Ann Robinson, 2003 or 2004
(Msg. 18) Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2008 3:09 pm
Post subject: Re: Is there a hard drive file organizer that will ... [Login to view extended thread Info.] Archived from groups: per prev. post (more info?)
In message <Xns9B4316F259D3Dthanexit RemoveThis @209.197.15.184>, thanatoid
<waiting RemoveThis @the.exit.invalid> writes
[]
>> Then copy the contents of each drive onto a single massive
>> drive (each into it's
>
>its
[]
See you in the APIHNA newsgroup ... (-:
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL(+++)IS-P--Ch+(p)Ar+T[?]H+Sh0!:`)DNAf
Lada for sale - see www.autotrader.co.uk
This trip should be called "Driving Miss Crazy" - Emma Wilson, on crossing the
southern United States with her mother, Ann Robinson, 2003 or 2004
(Msg. 19) Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2008 6:36 pm
Post subject: Re: Is there a hard drive file organizer that will ... [Login to view extended thread Info.] Archived from groups: per prev. post (more info?)
On Sat, 25 Oct 2008 12:43:40 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
<G6JPG.DeleteThis@soft255.demon.co.uk> put finger to keyboard and composed:
>In message <49029404.B4BBB9F5.DeleteThis@Guy.com>, 98 Guy <98.DeleteThis@Guy.com> writes
>>Is there a hard drive file organizer, optimizer, "cleaner", that will
>>
>>a) identify multiple copies of the same file based on
>> - same file name (but perhaps binary identical, perhaps not)
>> - different name, but binary identical
>[]
>Not sure if it will do anything like all you want, but I find David
>Taylor's FindDup -
>http://www.david-taylor.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/software/disk.html#FindDuplicates
>- reasonably useful. It certainly lists (see the screenshot at
>http://www.david-taylor.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/images/FindDupl.gif
>, which also shows that it can look over several drives) size, name,
>version number, and so on of the files it has found. I'm not sure it
>will find same name but not identical, but as another has said, the
>ordinary Windows find function will do that, if you tell it to sort by
>name (click on the Name column header) when it's finished searching.
That looks like a nice program but I've been running it all day and
it's still only a fraction of the way through the comparisons. However
that is probably a reflection on my poor housekeeping. In any case it
seems to me that the author would benefit greatly by using 98Guy's
approach, ie calculating and comparing MD5 checksums. IIRC, FastSum
took less than 30 minutes on my 450MHz box.
- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.
(Msg. 20) Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2008 7:42 pm
Post subject: Re: Is there a hard drive file organizer that will ... [Login to view extended thread Info.] Archived from groups: per prev. post (more info?)
98 Guy <98 RemoveThis @Guy.com> wrote in news:4904757E.5C19DCA6@Guy.com:
> thanatoid wrote:
>
>> > but for a SOHO situation where you have perhaps 5 to 10
>> > years worth of computer use by an office with 2, 5, 10
>> > or 20 people, you tend to build up a collection of hard
>> > drives that one day you want to organize and retrieve
>> > the contents of to make them available to others, and
>> > to wipe the original drives before donating or
>> > discarding.
>>
>> Ever heard of a network?
>
> What's that got to do with the paragraph above?
>
> If I have 10 copies of the same .xls or .doc file spread
> across 10 hard drives, putting all those drives on a
> network isin't going to change the fact that there are 10
> copies of the same file accessible to everyone on the
> network, instead of just one copy.
Your understanding of networks in not nearly as impeccable as
your logic of finding duplicates on one drive on which I
commented in my previous reply.
In any case, discussing the problem endlessly is not going to
make it go away, so either get to work, or quit your job. You
have been given all the info short of the phone number of
someone who will do it for you for free.
It's a nasty job, I admit. I suggest better planning next time
(it may not have been YOU that set things up this way, but it
appears to be in your lap now) and there is obviously little
control over what individuals do in that place. There are
various ways of dealing with such problems, and a network server
(which, BTW would contain ONE copy of each file which people can
access and work on as they need to) is one of starting points.
Careful supervision of what people actually DO on their
individual workstations and their qualifications is the second.
If you want this to actually be a success you may have to tell
everybody to go on vacation for a while so they don't instantly
mess up every little bit you've managed to do.
Reminds me of when I worked for a lunatic who wouldn't ever use
a pen, he ONLY used pencils - for when he made his endless
mistakes/corrections.
--
Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the
votes decide everything.
- Josef Stalin
NB: Not only is my KF over 4 KB and growing, I am also filtering
everything from discussions.microsoft and google groups, so no
offense if you don't get a reply/comment unless I see you quoted
in another post.
(Msg. 21) Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2008 7:42 pm
Post subject: Re: Is there a hard drive file organizer that will ... [Login to view extended thread Info.] Archived from groups: per prev. post (more info?)
> Your understanding of networks in not nearly as impeccable as
> your logic of finding duplicates on one drive on which I
> commented in my previous reply.
Okay, so as this thread reaches its EOL, it may interest
someone that all might not be as it seems.
I'm not sure about modern disk operating systems, but
some older ones would not actually make a copy when
asked to do so. Rather, they would make another full
path to the same data on disk (why waste space with
redundant data). Copying to another disk, or partition
on the same disk, would actually necessitate a copy
and would take longer as a result. When access was
made to the file, and it was modified, then the path used
to access that file would point to a newly created file
while the *original* would still be accessed from the
other paths.
So, deleting duplicate files on a single drive in this case
would only clean up the file system without freeing up
any harddrive space.
(Msg. 22) Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2008 10:30 pm
Post subject: Re: Is there a hard drive file organizer that will ... [Login to view extended thread Info.] Archived from groups: per prev. post (more info?)
In message <6og9g4ppkkap70p8ljdadfh8v8g6q6isc3 DeleteThis @4ax.com>, Franc Zabkar
<fzabkar DeleteThis @iinternode.on.net> writes
[]
>AFAICS, a fundamental flaw in duplicate finder software is that it
>relies on direct binary comparisons. With programs like FindDup, if we
>have 3 files of equal size, then we would need to compare file1 with
>file2, file1 with file3, and file2 with file3. This requires 6 reads.
>For n equally sized files, the number of reads is n(n-1).
Yes, if none of the comparisons match; if file 1 is found to be the same
as file 2, then there's no need to compare file 3 to both of them, only
one.
>
>Alternatively, if we relied on MD5 checksums, then each file would
>only need to be read once.
It's a while since I played with FindDup - but I think using checksums
of some sort is one of its configuration options.
[]
>>http://www.steffengerlach.de/freeware/
>>; this is what I can only describe as a hierarchical piecharter, and you
>>should try it. Of course, it must be rubbish, as it's only a 164K
[]
>I *love* small utility software. At the moment I'm playing with
>Windows CE in a small GPS device. It reminds me what can be done with
>a small amount of resources, eg a 16KB calculator, 23KB task manager,
>6.5KB screen capture utility.
[]
Of course, I was being sarcastic - I like small util.s too; not just for
the intrinsic appeal, but because they tend to run more quickly and with
fewer problems.
I still haven't found anything to beat flamer.com - OK, it is only a
fire simulator, but how it manages to do it in 437 bytes (4xx, anyway) I
still don't know. (Works under everything I've tried up to XP.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL(+++)IS-P--Ch+(p)Ar+T[?]H+Sh0!:`)DNAf
Lada for sale - see www.autotrader.co.uk
This trip should be called "Driving Miss Crazy" - Emma Wilson, on crossing the
southern United States with her mother, Ann Robinson, 2003 or 2004
(Msg. 23) Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 3:09 am
Post subject: Re: Is there a hard drive file organizer that will ... [Login to view extended thread Info.] Archived from groups: per prev. post (more info?)
On Sun, 26 Oct 2008 13:56:34 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
<G6JPG.TakeThisOut@soft255.demon.co.uk> put finger to keyboard and composed:
>In message <sa78g4hh81gdhr2k51vndb81dm429id32l.TakeThisOut@4ax.com>, Franc Zabkar
><fzabkar.TakeThisOut@iinternode.on.net> writes
>[]
>>>http://www.david-taylor.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/software/disk.html#FindDuplicates
>[]
>>That looks like a nice program but I've been running it all day and
>>it's still only a fraction of the way through the comparisons. However
>
>That is the problem I've found with it; it also slows down the PC a bit
>when it's been running a while. The solution is just to hit the stop
>button; it checks files in descending order of size, so by the time it
>has slowed to a crawl, it will have compared the large files. (I've seen
>it spend ages comparing a 44 byte file!) When you hit the stop button,
>you _don't_ lose what it has found so far. Once you've dealt with those,
>you can set it going again, and (assuming you've not _left_ big
>duplicates in place), it will start with the remaining duplicates, back
>at its higher starting speed.
>
>EasyCleaner, from http://personal.inet.fi/business/toniarts/ecleane.htm >(which is a free set of utilities I think anyone should have anyway)
>includes a duplicate finder which I think uses the same engine as
>FindDup, but starts with the littlest files. (I have a feeling it might
>not have the slowdown, either.)
AFAICS, a fundamental flaw in duplicate finder software is that it
relies on direct binary comparisons. With programs like FindDup, if we
have 3 files of equal size, then we would need to compare file1 with
file2, file1 with file3, and file2 with file3. This requires 6 reads.
For n equally sized files, the number of reads is n(n-1).
Alternatively, if we relied on MD5 checksums, then each file would
only need to be read once.
>>that is probably a reflection on my poor housekeeping. In any case it
>>seems to me that the author would benefit greatly by using 98Guy's
>>approach, ie calculating and comparing MD5 checksums. IIRC, FastSum
>>took less than 30 minutes on my 450MHz box.
>[]
>For finding "what's eating my disc", I haven't come across anything to
>beat Steffen Gerlach's Scanner, from
>http://www.steffengerlach.de/freeware/
>; this is what I can only describe as a hierarchical piecharter, and you
>should try it. Of course, it must be rubbish, as it's only a 164K
>download ... There's also a piecharter in David Taylor's area (same page
>as FindDup IIRR), and as part of EasyCleaner (again, I think uses David
>Taylor's code), and you can go up and down the levels in those, but I'm
>not aware of anything that has a hierarchical display like Scanner.
I *love* small utility software. At the moment I'm playing with
Windows CE in a small GPS device. It reminds me what can be done with
a small amount of resources, eg a 16KB calculator, 23KB task manager,
6.5KB screen capture utility.
- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.
(Msg. 24) Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 3:09 am
Post subject: Re: Is there a hard drive file organizer that will ... [Login to view extended thread Info.] Archived from groups: per prev. post (more info?)
> AFAICS, a fundamental flaw in duplicate finder software is that it
> relies on direct binary comparisons. With programs like FindDup, if we
> have 3 files of equal size, then we would need to compare file1 with
> file2, file1 with file3, and file2 with file3. This requires 6 reads.
> For n equally sized files, the number of reads is n(n-1).
>
> Alternatively, if we relied on MD5 checksums, then each file would
> only need to be read once.
So...once it is found to be the same checksum, what should the
program do next? How important are these files? A fundamental
flaw would be to trust MD5 checksums as an indication that the
files are indeed duplicates. You can mostly trust MD5 checksums
to indicate two files are different, but the other way around?
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