Mac Fanboy Needs WinXP Advice/Abuse.

[zestoi]

that windirstat app looks quite interesting - worth a shot first. all depends on why the pc is hanging in the first place ofc.

my first port of call is to boot linux from a cd or usb drive to fix any severe pc issues i have.

then i would use a method similar to mostapha. on linux that 'find' command will only find files with the .mp3 extension in lower case. personally i tend to just do a blanket find for all files and pipe into a file just so i can grep for anything i want later on.

also remembering that pesky windows tends to have spaces in lots of file names you'll need quotes round the 'cp' line of that script like this:

cp "$REPLY" /full/path/to/destination

i have no clue whether these things only apply to linux - i've never used osx.

[smiTTTen]

IF the pc still has enough chops to connect to your router you might be able to just to share out the drive and use another computer on the lan to search through it and copy the stuff across. This is by no means as full proof as the other solutions mentioned but it might be the easiest to try first. For ease, I would also recommend searching using another win based system.

[mostapha]

But the music is not on a Mac. Mac has nothing to do with this.

Its on a Dell PC and i want to move it all to an windows formatted external drive or a drive that could be formatted to be read by both Mac & PC.

i just thought there might be a piece of hardcore software dedicated to locating files and moving them.

Did you read my advice at all?

In short…no. There isn't. But bash, find, and cp will do the job if you're willing to spend half an hour learning…and they're all sitting in /bin on your Mac.

[MiL0]

you could spend ages trying to get search software working properly on the pc, networking it up to your mac and/or using linux cds...

the easiest solution would be just to pull the hard disks out of the Dell, whack them in USB caddy's and plug them directly into your mac. Once they're on your mac, you can use whatever mac software you prefer to sort all the music out / copy it off. Then you can wipe the disks, put 'em back in the PC and reinstall Windows.

But, if it's RAID, as someone else said - you might have some issues with this method.

edit: if you really want to use search software, then I recommend Locate32 and Everything... both very fast and powerful search tools.

[SAFC2403]

you could spend ages trying to get search software working properly on the pc, networking it up to your mac and/or using linux cds...

the easiest solution would be just to pull the hard disks out of the Dell, whack them in USB caddy's and plug them directly into your mac. Once they're on your mac, you can use whatever mac software you prefer to sort all the music out / copy it off. Then you can wipe the disks, put 'em back in the PC and reinstall Windows.

But, if it's RAID, as someone else said - you might have some issues with this method.

edit: if you really want to use search software, then I recommend Locate32 and Everything... both very fast and powerful search tools.

+1 to that. Pull the drive and connect it to another and let the other machine do the searching. Once you've got the files off rebuild XP.

[photojojo]

you could spend ages trying to get search software working properly on the pc, networking it up to your mac and/or using linux cds...

the easiest solution would be just to pull the hard disks out of the Dell, whack them in USB caddy's and plug them directly into your mac. Once they're on your mac, you can use whatever mac software you prefer to sort all the music out / copy it off. Then you can wipe the disks, put 'em back in the PC and reinstall Windows.

But, if it's RAID, as someone else said - you might have some issues with this method.

edit: if you really want to use search software, then I recommend Locate32 and Everything... both very fast and powerful search tools.

+1 to that. Pull the drive and connect it to another and let the other machine do the searching. Once you've got the files off rebuild XP.

I tend to agree with pulling the hard drive, but you'll have to spend money if you don't already have an enclosure. I'm a stingy bastard and don't want to spend any more money than I have to so that's why I've used the Linux method in the past.

[Karlos Santos]

It is a RAID 1 DELL Dimension 5150


Yes the PC is connected to my network. Ive been offered a base unit so the idea of networking the 2 and and searching from the new PC sounds good.


Another issue is that the Dell has some strange issue with USB ports which is apparently common on this model of Dell. The only way it will accept USB devices is if they are on a powered hub so it obviously time to get everything off it and throw it away.

Thanks for all the answers and, the sarcasm i guess pfft.