how do I fix it so my apps know where the data they need now lives?

August 13, 2005 5:48 PM

A string of bad assumptions. I installed a slave drive. I assumed it was OK to move entire directories of data to the new drive. I assumed that windows XP would be kind enough to update any and all registry entries referring to these files. I assumed that this would mean I could open WinAmp (for example) and the library would still point to the right files. I assumed wrong. I need a free application to fix this for me. Do you know of any?
posted by Grod to computers & internet (10 comments total)

Google turns up a few things but I'm hoping someone else has dealt with this problem.
posted by Grod at 5:54 PM on August 13, 2005

I think you're confusing how things work, on a few different levels.

If you want to change where Winamp looks for files to add to the Media Library, go to General Preferences --> Media Library --> Watch Folders, and add the directory there.

When you move a file, nothing keeps track of it. Only you know where you put it. Not your OS, not your applications.
posted by Jairus at 6:08 PM on August 13, 2005

Um. Sort of true. There's always HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\AppName\Recent File List

which is usually just a waste of space, but some programs will track everything and remember which folders things are in and where they live long after I've forgotten. It doesn't matter, I can update things as I go, I was just curious if there was a way to synch all this up at the click of a buttton.
posted by Grod at 6:14 PM on August 13, 2005

hmm, wait. I'm an idiot. Nevermind.
posted by Grod at 6:27 PM on August 13, 2005

The Recent File List is only updated if you save a document using that application. If you move a document in any other way then the registry has no way of knowing that.

When I add new drives to systems under XP, I tend to mount them on the NTFS file system, rather than add them as new drive letters for exactly this reason. I can take the data from my C:/MP3 (or whatever) and move it to a new drive, which I then mount under C:/MP3 and no-one's any the wiser - everything just works...
posted by benzo8 at 6:28 PM on August 13, 2005

benzo8-wow. Waitaminit. How do you do that, does the tool/command come with XP or do you need a download? I know there's some NTFS Junction Point freeware out there, but I don't think it's the same thing you're talking about.
posted by evariste at 7:10 PM on August 13, 2005

On a very vaguely related note, this is pretty cool.
posted by evariste at 7:11 PM on August 13, 2005

Evariste, it's pretty basic. Note that I have winXP pro, which may or may not be the case for you, but broadly, here it is:

Attach the new drive to your machine, and then in your Control Panel, open Administrative Tools->Computer Management

In that window, you want the Disk Management item under Storage (Computer Management -> Storage -> Disk Management)

You'll see a whack of drives (or I do -- but I've got a few) one of which will be the drive you just added. What you want to do first, of course, is copy everything from the directory you are planning on movin g (Call it c:\mp3 for this example) into the root of the new drive (Say, I:) Do this in your file manager of choice. I lean towards cp -R , myself, but Explorer is fine. When this is done, delete all of the contents of the old location, but do not delete the directory itself. You'll need it.

Then, back in the Computer Management window, you want to right-click on the new drive (I:) and select Change Drive letter and Paths. Click "Add..." and select "Mount in the following empty NFS folder"

I suspect the rest should be clear from here ;)
posted by ChrisR at 9:08 PM on August 13, 2005

ChrisR-wow that's great, completely clear and simple. Thanks! I have Pro on the laptop and Home on the desktop and the Computer Management console is present on both. I'm inspired, I mounted all my hard disks and cd/dvd drives on folders named after the drive letters in my home folder in cygwin. It's a lot easier than typing /cygdrive/c/path/to/file/i'm/looking/for in bash. I already had a soft symlink to my desktop as "dsk" in my home directory, so I can say cd ~/dsk and be in my desktop which is super easy. Of course, I can use symlinks to the /cygdrive/[Drive Letter] directory to accomplish the same thing, but you don't get the nice Explorer drive icons that way when you look at your home directory in explorer.

Neat little cygwin trick: you can start an explorer window in the current bash working directory by typing

cygstart .

into bash. This also works for opening files with their default Windows handler, eg "cygstart index.php" opens index.php in your system's default web browser.
posted by evariste at 10:31 PM on August 13, 2005

Mounting on directories is also handy for those 28-squillion-in-1 card readers which show up as half a dozen mass storage devices; instead of I:, J:, K:, L:, M: and N:, you can have "C:\Card Reader\Secure Digital", etc. The only problem I find with this is you can no longer Eject the drives, or even "Safely Remove Hardware", so make sure you have Properties -> Policies set to Optimize for quick removal (the default I think).
posted by Freaky at 3:46 AM on August 14, 2005