Spotlight results from unmounted drives?

dix · Post by **dix** » Sun Feb 27, 2011 1:08 pm

Is there any way to get Spotlight to show results from unmounted drives? Instead of archiving to DVD I now use raw sata drives and a drive dock. I've tried a couple of utilities that sort of keep track of unmounted volumes, but they're all unreliable, badly implemented and buggy. There must be a way to get Spotlight to do this in a reliable way. ...any ideas?

Thanks!

MIDI Life Crisis · Post by **MIDI Life Crisis** » Sun Feb 27, 2011 7:05 pm

That's a tough one. I don't Spotlight can, only those nasty shareware apps. You're only chance would be if there were a way to save search results somehow in Spotlight and port the resulting text to a file of some kind.

FMiguelez · Post by **FMiguelez** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 6:59 am

.

If it's OK to ask, why would you want to do this?
What are you trying to accomplish exactly?

Even if you could keep track of files in an unmounted drive and find them via some kind of pre-stored directory, you would still have to mount the drive to actually access the files...

MIDI Life Crisis · Post by **MIDI Life Crisis** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 7:10 am

I totally get that. I have several drives that aren't even installed in a computer or enclosure, but are loaded with TBs of data. Or they might be in an enclosure, but all the ports are in use. It could also be useful to send the data (Spotlight results) to another computer or collaborator. For example, it would be great to send a list of 200GB of SFX...

Hey, FM! How are you doin?

cuttime · Post by **cuttime** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 10:18 am

How about just taking a screen shot and printing it out to keep with the drive? I don't even use spotlight any more since I found

http://apps.tempel.org/FindAnyFile/index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Better than Spotlight, it searches within packages and hidden files.

dix · Post by **dix** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 10:26 am

FMiguelez wrote:.

If it's OK to ask, why would you want to do this?
What are you trying to accomplish exactly?

Even if you could keep track of files in an unmounted drive and find them via some kind of pre-stored directory, you would still have to mount the drive to actually access the files...

That IS why. As the number of archive-drives grows it becomes more of a PIA to mount every one in order to execute a simple search for an old project or file. With a DVD archive you can write on the box or the media what the disk has on it, with a TB of data it's not possible.

I did learn that the Spotlight data for every disk is stored on that disk so I guess I'm looking for a utility or a trick that would copy that data to my OS drive. I'm surprised this isn't simpler. It seems like people that work on networks, where media is always going on and off line would need this type of search capabilities. Even if there was a reliable utility for this, I'd still feel better having the data stored in somewhere in the Mac OS for the archival long-haul.

frankf · Post by **frankf** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 7:09 pm

dix wrote:Is there any way to get Spotlight to show results from unmounted drives?
Thanks!

Check out Disktracker. Inelegant GUI, but you scan any mounted volume to a Disktracker catalog, later search the catalog without mounting any scanned volume.
http://www.portents.com/disktracker/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Frank

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

frankf · Post by **frankf** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 7:10 pm

dix wrote:Is there any way to get Spotlight to show results from unmounted drives?
Thanks!

Check out Disktracker. Inelegant GUI, but you scan any mounted volume to a Disktracker catalog, later search the catalog without mounting any scanned volume.
http://www.portents.com/disktracker/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Frank

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Kurt Cowling · Post by **Kurt Cowling** » Wed Mar 02, 2011 7:25 am

I use CDFinder http://www.cdfinder.de/. The UI is fine and when you search inside CDFinder it also searches Spotlight at the same time and shows the results together. In other words, you can search your mounted and unmounted volumes with one search.

--Kurt

FMiguelez · Post by **FMiguelez** » Wed Mar 02, 2011 9:43 am

.

The above suggestions seem interesting. I will check them out in detail later today.

I must say that my backup/archiving tasks have been eased and simplified tremendously by having a couple of dedicated large HDs for this purpose. One with TM and one regular cloning...
No more keeping track of a ton of DVDs, and finding and revisiting old projects is a snap

MIDI Life Crisis wrote: Hey, FM! How are you doin?

Hey, Mike. I'm doing fine. Thanks for asking

I've been working on a few VERY BORING projects. Jaaaawn....

How about you, my friend?

MIDI Life Crisis · Post by **MIDI Life Crisis** » Wed Mar 02, 2011 10:26 am

FMiguelez wrote: How about you, my friend?

Great, dude! I'm PM you when I take a break later. All's well in LaLaLand.

bdr · Post by **bdr** » Wed Mar 02, 2011 5:03 pm

+1 for cdfinder, very fast to index

Kurt Cowling wrote:I use CDFinder http://www.cdfinder.de/. The UI is fine and when you search inside CDFinder it also searches Spotlight at the same time and shows the results together. In other words, you can search your mounted and unmounted volumes with one search.

--Kurt

dix · Post by **dix** » Wed Mar 02, 2011 5:14 pm

Thanks for the input! I've tried all the utilities suggested above, and a couple more, with mixed results. I was hoping that Spotlight could be cajoled into reporting on offline drives. Apparently it can not. Maybe Lion'll offer something like this.

Thanks again.

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