How I find my files (including on external disks and DVDs) & Blu-ray movies etc

Software Jun 11, 2010

Now where are those files? I’m looking for the movie Big Buck Bunny.avi as well as the unpublished masterpiece My Life Story by Me.doc

They are either on the main hard drive … or maybe on one of my archive DVDs or – hang on – are they on that 500 GB external USB hard disk? Then there’s the files on that old laptop that I access via the network. Mmmm.

The solution is to use a Windows file catalogue program and then do a search. I’m only going to give quick overviews so you can go off and have fun trying them out for yourselves.

Key point: I’m really only interested in file and folder names, not their contents nor their tags (like mp3 or jpg files have). It takes much longer to catalogue inside a file and there are programs that will do this.

I have covered my tips for Archiving and indexing your digital photos elsewhere on SiC.

Files stored on hard drives, including external USB/firewire and networked hard drives

I use the free Locate32 to catalogue these drives. I can then search for the file named Big Buck Bunny with the extension avi. Or all avi’s. It can do more complicated searches (size and date etc). My basic Logitech keyboard has a Search key and I assign that to start up Locate32. I also have Windows update some of Locate32’s catalogues every few hours; the main ones.

FYI: on the main hard drive I catalogue My Documents, my Music folders and Downloads

Files on back up (archive) media like data DVDs

I say data DVDs as I mean these store files like My Life Story by Me.doc and not my Mad Max 2 (movie) DVD. Actually see below for a bonus on Movie DVDs and Blu-rays.

I just use the free Cathy software for cataloguing and searching these archive DVDs. When I create/burn the original back up (archive) DVD, I give it a sensible Volume Label, like MyDocs2009b. I then write that on the disk itself and catalogue it with Cathy. Later on, when I search for My Life Story by Me it tells me it’s on DVD disk MyDocs2009b

Movie DVD and Blu-ray disks

I use the free EMDB. You don’t actually put the movie disk in, just give Cathy some basic info – like the Title - and it will search Amazon to fill in the details, including a cover art image. You confirm/change the details and then save away. It’s stored locally and you don’t need Amazon unless you add a new Movie. You can then search your own EMDB Movie catalogue by Title, Genre, Cast, Director etc.