Files discrepency

Waldo Pepper · 18-05-2013, 13:27

Hi
I keep my master mp3 files on my laptop. They are backed up (manually) on my NAS and music server.

However recently I wanted an mp3 I thought would be on my laptop only to find it was missing, as were a few others from the same directory. They were however present on my NAS & server.

Looking into this, I have different files numbers and folder number across all three platforms. I have no idea how this has happened.

Is there such a program like Visual Differences that will allow me to see across all three sources what is different?

TIA

idi banashapan · 18-05-2013, 15:28

1. run cmd.exe to get a command prompt. Then do it again, so that you have two of them open next to each other.
2. in each window go to the directories that you want to compare. (Using 'cd' commands. If you're not comfortable with this, then you should probably go with the external utilities, unless you want to learn command prompt stuff.)
3. type 'dir /b > A.txt' into one window and 'dir /b > B.txt' into the other. You'll now have two text files that list the contents of each directory. The /b flag means bare, which strips the directory listing down to file names only.
4. move B.txt into the same folder as A.txt.
5. type 'fc A.txt B.txt'. The command 'fc' means file compare. This will spit out a list of the differences between the two files, with an extra line of text above and below each difference, so you know where they are. For more options on how the output is formatted, type 'fc /?' at the prompt. You can also pipe the differences into another file by using something like 'fc A.txt B.txt > differences.txt'.

hth

Qtx · 19-05-2013, 22:55

Not sure about comparing three different locations but for comparing two you can use MOBZync

As well as showing you with colours the differences in a side by side view, you can tell it to search all the subfolders and just show you the differences in the results. As far as I remember you have to map the network drives to a drive letter rather than using a UNC

techguyone · 20-05-2013, 11:03

Rather than backing up manually, why not use something like Allway Sync, I've used it quite happily for some years now, with auto backups (one way) to an external USB drive just to give me some security in case of main HD failure. I've never had any issue with mismatching of files and once set you can pretty much forget about it.

Waldo Pepper · 21-05-2013, 17:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Qtx

Not sure about comparing three different locations but for comparing two you can use MOBZync

As well as showing you with colours the differences in a side by side view, you can tell it to search all the subfolders and just show you the differences in the results. As far as I remember you have to map the network drives to a drive letter rather than using a UNC

I tried this and on the surface seems to be OK. However it is marking files newer when they have exactly the same size and date and when using DOS compare, appear to be the same. Any suggestions?

Qtx · 21-05-2013, 17:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Waldo Pepper

I tried this and on the surface seems to be OK. However it is marking files newer when they have exactly the same size and date and when using DOS compare, appear to be the same. Any suggestions?

Not sure to be honest. It shouldn't make a difference if the filesystems are different on the NAS and your computer but that is the only reason I can think of why that would happen.

Its been a year or so since I used that program and don't have it installed anymore. It did just work for me out of the box when comparing drives over the network though, didn't have to fiddle with any settings.