How to copy mp3s from one Hard drive to an another?

March 16, 2007 11:57 AM

How can i scan an internal Hard disk for mp3s and and copy them to an External Hard disk automatically ?

I want to scan an internal Hard disk for mp3s and copy them all to an external Hard disk. The problem is the source drive has identical mp3s in different folder location so a simple windows search then copy and paste fails.

Is there a tool that will enable me to copy all mp3s from one drive to another either excluding duplicates or renaming ? or possibly a step further a tool that will scan, copy and do some basic folder organisation ( im not to bothered about the destination drive being organised i can do this manually at a later time )

help / suggestions appreciated

posted by toocan to computers & internet (13 answers total)

Can't you just drag the folder to the new drive?
posted by ReiToei at 12:08 PM on March 16, 2007

Assuming you're on a Windows machine, RoboCopy would work very well.
posted by Luciferous at 12:09 PM on March 16, 2007

the file structure is quite complex and there loads of other files etc i dont want. I only want to copy the mp3s
posted by toocan at 12:09 PM on March 16, 2007

The details are beyond me, but this is exactly the kind of task that can be automated by scripting. Google for 'windows scripting' (or 'linux shell scripting,' or Applescript, as the case may be) to get an idea of what I mean.
posted by box at 12:19 PM on March 16, 2007

P.S. - If you find the command-line version of the RoboCopy tool, it would just be a matter of something like this:

ROBOCOPY C:\ D:\ *.MP3 /S

...assuming your source is the C: drive and the destination (removable) drive is D:. This would "walk" the C: drive looking for MP3 files and copy them to the same destination on the D: drive. You'll want to play around with it a little as a "test" before doing any real work with it, because with the wrong parameters you can accidentally delete lots of files VERY quickly.
posted by Luciferous at 12:19 PM on March 16, 2007

If you're on an OS X Mac 10.4.x, you could set something like that up really easily with Automator.
posted by The Michael The at 12:32 PM on March 16, 2007

If the external drive is made by Western Digital, the drive will include a function to do this exact thing with the included software.
posted by drezdn at 12:33 PM on March 16, 2007

Windows native method: Start > Run, type in "cmd" and hit enter. Then this string:

xcopy /s c:\*.mp3 d:\

Adjust directory letters as necessary (c: is where it starts, d: is where it ends). Prepare for it to take a bit, it should tell you what it's doing.
posted by anaelith at 12:38 PM on March 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

iTunes will do this for you.
posted by ikkyu2 at 1:18 PM on March 16, 2007

You can put anaeliths solution in a .bat file and set it up to run on a schedule (Control Panel->Schedule tasks)
posted by Four Flavors at 2:13 PM on March 16, 2007

Do a basic windows search for "*.mp3"

Then "select all"

Then drag them to your external harddisk.

:-)
posted by sandra_s at 6:23 PM on March 16, 2007

*Once you find your mp3s*

Really, organize that stuff. Keep it all in one place, and back it up like you're about to have a drive head crash. Because if you're not prepared, karma will make sure you get your head crash.

Seriously, this is an issue that will only get worse as you get more music, and it's really going to save you a lot of PITA moments if you front-load the organization.

Really. Do it. Seriously.
posted by SlyBevel at 7:53 PM on March 16, 2007

(They call me a "Legend" at Locker Envy, so I know about managing large music collections.)
posted by SlyBevel at 8:06 PM on March 16, 2007