How do I move stubborn files from Linux to Windows?
March 3, 2007 12:04 PM Subscribe
I've been in the process of moving mass amounts of music from one of my Linux partitions to my Windows partition using LTOOLS, and am running into two problems.
Although most of my files are able to move alright, in each album there'll be one or two files that either display their filename as something like 05 05 Song Name.mp3 (when it's simply 05 Song Name.mp3) or they'll generate a date before the regular name of the file. These two types of files refuse to move over to Windows. The rest will look and act exactly like they do in Linux. Unfortunately, I have no way of burning CDs or connecting an external drive of any sort to move these files. I can, however, still fully modify them in Linux.
What's causing these particular files to act strangely, and how can I get them over to Windows?
Although most of my files are able to move alright, in each album there'll be one or two files that either display their filename as something like 05 05 Song Name.mp3 (when it's simply 05 Song Name.mp3) or they'll generate a date before the regular name of the file. These two types of files refuse to move over to Windows. The rest will look and act exactly like they do in Linux. Unfortunately, I have no way of burning CDs or connecting an external drive of any sort to move these files. I can, however, still fully modify them in Linux.
What's causing these particular files to act strangely, and how can I get them over to Windows?
i'd do something like mkisofs of big chunks of files, then move the iso, then open the iso back up in windows... but i'm weird like that.
posted by thilmony at 12:22 PM on March 3, 2007
posted by thilmony at 12:22 PM on March 3, 2007
Could you have filename collisions going from unix case-sensitive filenames to windows case-preserving filenames.
For example, in linux "FileName.mp3" and "filename.mp3" are two distinct names. On windows, they are equivalent.
posted by Good Brain at 12:29 PM on March 3, 2007
For example, in linux "FileName.mp3" and "filename.mp3" are two distinct names. On windows, they are equivalent.
posted by Good Brain at 12:29 PM on March 3, 2007
If you have bad characters - escape codes or other hidden characters that aren't seen in Linux, you may be able to see them by using a command line in Windows. Don't use a GUI view in Windows because the GUI only shows long file names.
Use the DIR /x command in a Windows command prompt to see the short and long filenames of the files in question - i.e. "05 05 Song Name.mp3" has a short file name of "0505SO~1.MP3". If there are any odd characters that aren't translating, you should see them in this view. Use a command line rename with an asterisk to get around the offending character - for example, "rename 0505SO*.MP3 0505.MP3".
Open a command line and do a dir /? or rename /? to get more info on doing this.
posted by disclaimer at 9:25 PM on March 3, 2007
Use the DIR /x command in a Windows command prompt to see the short and long filenames of the files in question - i.e. "05 05 Song Name.mp3" has a short file name of "0505SO~1.MP3". If there are any odd characters that aren't translating, you should see them in this view. Use a command line rename with an asterisk to get around the offending character - for example, "rename 0505SO*.MP3 0505.MP3".
Open a command line and do a dir /? or rename /? to get more info on doing this.
posted by disclaimer at 9:25 PM on March 3, 2007
I would boot from a Linux live CD (like the Ubuntu installer disc) and do it from linux. Everything should be much easier to deal with when you're Actually Running Linuxtm.
posted by wzcx at 12:42 PM on March 6, 2007
posted by wzcx at 12:42 PM on March 6, 2007
This thread is closed to new comments.
05 05 Song Name.mp3 => 05songname.mp3
(all lower case and no spaces)
???
posted by jmnugent at 12:22 PM on March 3, 2007