File comparison between main drive and USB drive

[alexc]

I'm a newbie to FreeCommander. My system is running Windows XP Pro.

I have an external (USB) drive with about 30,000 files on it. I'd like to get a list of files that are on the external drive but are NOT on the internal (main) drive on my PC. Note that this is the opposite of duplicate checking. The directory structure is quite a bit different between the two drives, but my expectation is that most of the files on the USB drive will be duplicates of files on the main drive.

Is this something that FreeCommander can do? If so, how?

As I said, I'm new to this utility, so an answer with some detail would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

--
Alex C. in Rochester, NY

[ralfso]

If the directory structure is different and only the filenames are are of interest, you can do it with a little bit detouring.

View your USB-drive in flat view, mark all files, copy all filenames to clipboard and paste them to a textfile.
View your folder on HDD in flat view, mark all files, copy all filenames to clipboard and paste them to another textfile.

Compare the textfiles with a file-comparison-program, e.g. ExamDiff or WinMerge.

[alexc]

Hi Ralf,

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately, I don't think that your suggestion would work in my case. It's possible that two (or more) files have identical content but have different filenames. Alternatively, two (or more) files may have the same name but different content.

So, I'd need something that would actually compare the files without regard to filename, file date, or directory structure.

--
Alex C.

[stedanarh]

Try to use this:
1. View - Flat view files (shortcut: Ctrl+B);
2. Edit - Select all (shortcut: Ctrl+A);
3. File - Create MD5-checksums (shortcut: Ctrl+K) - It will be open a window. Select the Show checksums options;
4. Select the output text and copy in a column of a Spreadsheet software (Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice Calc, Gnumeric etc)

Repeat this steps with the other directory.

Compare the lines with a formula like in the C column: =A1=B1. It will show the TRUE or FALSE result.
You could filter after that the rows with FALSE result to show the different files.