[RESOLVED] Compare a directory and subs against another?

[drag0n_45]

Hey there,
The title of my post is a little misleading, though I'm not quite sure how to put it.
I just found an old hard drive with a bunch of my music on it and want to make sure I have all of it. The folder/directory structure may have changed, and the root folder may have changed. (i.e. on the new drive, Library is the root folder title and on the old one MP3's is the old title). I'd like to be able to take each file, search the contents of the new drive, and ensure that the file exists, preferrably with a CRC-type check.

I don't necessarily need a program written to do this, just didn't know if anyone knew of one of knew how to quickly code one. I'm even will to use a bat file if I have to...

[baja_yu]

How about one of these

http://www.digitalvolcano.co.uk/content/duplicate-cleaner
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-duplicate-file-detector.htm

[drag0n_45]

I'll check em out and let you know. Thanks

[drag0n_45]

So I took a look at those links, and it seems that they kind-of, sort-of do the job. I need a tool that confirms that all files are duplicates and makes it easy to find the ones that don't exist in another directory. These tools look for duplicates and notify me if they exist. That's great and it's definitely a good tool to have, but how do I know what files to copy over to the new music library? I suppose I may be being a little picky here, but surely someone else has had this need before...

[baja_yu]

You might be looking for a folder synchronizer then. What it does is it compares two folders, and synchronizes them to have identical data. Can copy new files from folder1 to folder2, copy changed files, delete files from folder2 that are not in folder1 etc.

Here's a couple of those:

http://allwaysync.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SyncToy

And a big list with even more of them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_File_synchronization_software

AlwaySync for example can also synchronize with a folder on an FTP.

[leinad31]

Might as well load the various directories to your player, then sort them there... you need to listen to them to verify if they are identical anyway, or to pick which version is not corrupt/better.

[baja_yu]

That's a very important subject leinad picked up on. There isn't an automated method to check if two songs are the same. Maybe you have two files of the same song, but at different bitrates, which results in different file sizes. An automated check wont be able to tell you that those two are the same song.

[drag0n_45]

What if that automated check compared CRC's?

[drag0n_45]

I really just want to know if I'm forgetting anything on the old drive before I ditch it. I don't need it to restructure anything, though I'd bet those things could be shut off. ultimately, I just need it to gather a list of filenames and CRC's, then compare with the new directory against filenames/crcs to ensure that all crc's in the old directory exist in the new. the new one will have more stuff, I just want to make sure everything is there. If it's not there, the file name will be required to tell me where to look to copy it.

[baja_yu]

If that's the case, why not copy everything, then search and remove duplicates?... if the space on the new hard drive permits it.

[drag0n_45]

That's a good idea. Duh.

[baja_yu]

Backups are a tricky thing. Every time I'm about to format and reinstall the OS, I think I re-check the partition at least ten times to make sure I don't miss anything and delete it.

[drag0n_45]

I usually just buy a new hard drive and put the old one in as a slave (or another SATA). That's the best way to go, IMHO.