Niku
Level 2 (305 points)
Mac OS X

Q: Index of external hard drive

I have never been able to use my external hard drive for the purpose for which it was intended: finding things and retrieving them. Maybe there's  a better way.  Is there  a program that would enable me to print a visible index/graph/chart of the hard drive? I mean a kind of chart or graph that  would show where everything is? I mean everything. Music, photos, mail, and everything else. In fact, to extend the idea further, perhaps such a graph/chart in an electronic format that would enable you to find things by moving the cursor around on the electronic chart/graph. Something like probing the brain with a prong to produce memories of long ago, Yes, I am serious. Right now, I'm looking for many things that I now see are  no longer in my computer. One of them was a recording of seven LPs of poetry. Why can't I use my external hard drive as easily as Spotlight used to be? I mean, I'd like to type the the name of the poem, or the narrator, or the album name, and locate the recordings immediately. I have found side 2 (each recording is one side of an LP), but I can't find the other 13 sides.

iPad (4th gen) Wi-Fi, iOS 9.3.1

Posted on Aug 9, 2016 6:56 PM

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Niku

Q: Index of external hard drive

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  • Helpful answers

  • by leroydouglas,

    leroydouglas leroydouglas Aug 9, 2016 7:03 PM in response to Niku
    Level 7 (22,920 points)
    Notebooks
    Aug 9, 2016 7:03 PM in response to Niku

    Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac - Apple Support

  • by dialabrain,Helpful

    dialabrain dialabrain Aug 9, 2016 8:11 PM in response to Niku
    Level 5 (5,905 points)
    Mac App Store
    Aug 9, 2016 8:11 PM in response to Niku

    This may help also…

    OS X El Capitan: Narrow the scope of your searches

     

    One thing to note, if your external drive is formatted as NTFS, it cannot be indexed without one of the third-party apps from Paragon or Tuxera that allow OSX to write to NTFS formatted drives. EasyFind from the App Store will search an NTFS drive without an index.

  • by babowa,

    babowa babowa Aug 9, 2016 7:48 PM in response to Niku
    Level 7 (31,900 points)
    iPad
    Aug 9, 2016 7:48 PM in response to Niku

    How do you have that external drive organized? Did you put different things in different folders (such as a Movie folder, a Photos folder, etc, etc)? Or did you just drag and drop? I'd take the time to organize things - that way, you can open the folder in list or column view and it'll show its contents which you can scroll through until you get to the one you want.

  • by Niku,

    Niku Niku Aug 9, 2016 8:11 PM in response to dialabrain
    Level 2 (305 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 9, 2016 8:11 PM in response to dialabrain

    Well, I understand very little of what you've said, EXCEPT that installing Paragon or Tuxera (whatever they are) might be a good idea. I'll check them out. Thanks.

  • by dialabrain,

    dialabrain dialabrain Aug 9, 2016 8:14 PM in response to Niku
    Level 5 (5,905 points)
    Mac App Store
    Aug 9, 2016 8:14 PM in response to Niku

    You're welcome. They are only helpful if you use NTFS formatted drives.

  • by Niku,

    Niku Niku Aug 9, 2016 8:25 PM in response to babowa
    Level 2 (305 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 9, 2016 8:25 PM in response to babowa

    I connected both hard drives to the USB ports on my computer; then, I clicked on the hard drive icons on my desktop to open them up  Finally, I dragged the files from the donor hard drive to the 3TB hard drive. One hard drive took about TWENTY-TWO HOURS to transfer to the 3TB hard drive. I wasn't expecting that. I thought that it would only take about three hours. I started at 5:42 AM one day and finished around 3:00 AM the next day.

  • by Niku,

    Niku Niku Aug 9, 2016 8:38 PM in response to Niku
    Level 2 (305 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 9, 2016 8:38 PM in response to Niku

    I think I have found ALL of the missing files. I haven't taken inventory, but they all seem to be in my iPad. Whether I made a conscious effort to put them there or whether it was done automatically, I don't know or remember. The important thing is that they're not lost as I had feared. Now I just have to put  copies of them back where they came from. What  way to finish the day, a great way.