Indexing removable media

Is it possible to use Spotlight to index removable media (CD's, DVD's) in a way that will allow you to search their contents even if they aren't mounted? Back in the days of OS9 I used an app called 'Catlogue' to do this but it seems obvious that Spotlight would incorporate this type of functionality either by default or via a plugin? If not can anyone recommend another way of doing this?
Mac OS X (10.4.3)

Hi, robotos.
You may want to define your requirements more precisely. For example:
1. Are you interested in simply being able to index the file names on the backup CDs/DVDs so you can find them by name?
2. Or are you interested in performing content-based searches to find a given CD, e.g. find the files on CDs/DVDs that contain "apple."
3. Both.
You might want to look at digital media asset-management solutions, such as Extensis Portfolio, Canto Cumulus, or iView Media and iView Media Pro. I suspect Portfolio might be the way to go once they add their promised support for indexing MS Office documents.
Until Spotlight, there was only one true, third-party solution for content-based text retrieval on Mac OS X besides the built-in content indexing and Find under Mac OS X, i.e. items 2 and 3 above: Virginia Systems Sonar and Sonar Professional.
Another thing you may want to consider is the following: backup your work to both FireWire drives and CD/DVD. Use the former for fast access and search — via Spotlight — of recent projects, the latter for archiving projects. For advice on the backup and recovery solution I employ, see my "Backup and Recovery" FAQ.
Note: When looking for new applications, I recommend searching MacUpdate or Version Tracker. The user-submitted reviews accompanying the listings are helpful in sorting the wheat from the chaff.
Good luck!
Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X
Note: The information provided in the link(s) above is freely available. However, because I own The X Lab™, a commercial Web site to which some of these links point, the Apple Discussions Terms of Use require I include the following disclosure statement with this post:
I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

Similar Messages

[Forum FAQ] Removable media and external HDD

Scenario
There are two conceptions about which we would have confusion in some particular scenarios: removable media and external HDD. Here are two examples:
If you need to make a USB storage device perform AutoRun, the device must not be marked as a removable media device and the device must contain an Autorun.inf file and a startup application.
Answer File Search on removable read/write media.
Definition and Research
The definition of the removable media and external HDD is shown below:
The removable media device setting is a flag contained within the SCSI Inquiry Data response to the SCSI Inquiry command. Bit 7 of byte 1 (indexed from 0) is the Removable Media Bit (RMB). An RMB set to zero indicates that the device is not a removable
media device. An RMB of one indicates that the device is a removable media device. Drivers obtain this information by using the StorageDeviceProperty request.
External HDDs typically connect via USB; variants using USB interface generally have slower data transfer rates when compared to internally mounted hard drives connected through SATA.
That is, the removable media has a device property attach itself, from the results on Linux and Windows OS, we can see the difference between removable media and
generic external disk:
Here are the outputs of dmesg log on Linux OS:
sd 10:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
(generic external disk)
sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
(USB flash drive)
Here is the output on Windows OS:
We use following command to get the media type of physical drive:
Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_DiskDrive | Format-Table Name,Model, MediaType
Conclusion
From the device’s property, we cannot say that external device is equal to removable media totally. Removable media is associated with the RMB flag, of course, RMB is embedded in device itself.
Now, back to our common issue, when you supply an answer file on a USB external HDD, it would not recognize your device as a removable media, because the StorageDeviceProperty gets value 0 of RMB to indicate this is not a removable media. In this situation,
supply an answer file on a USB flash drive (UFD) or floppy disk would fix this issue.
Please click to vote if the post helps you. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.
Please click to vote if the post helps you. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Ive had it on my Ibook before and then moved it to the HDD because of Space Shortage, and then just added as ive aquired more music. Idon't Really Remeber but i think it worked before without any hiccups. oh well otherwise i can just delete those files because theyre only single files here and there. but its quite irritating because they don't seem to have any kind of corruption.

KDE - automatic mounting removable media broken?

Hi,
I have just installed Arch Linux, along with KDE unstable.
The last time I used Arch and KDE (this was several months back, I think), I remember removable media working out of the box.
However, this time when I insert a USB drive, nothing seems to happen.
I have the udisks2 package installed, but udisks is not installed.
I have not added myself to the storage group (or any other special groups) as per the recommendation on the wiki regarding systemd (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Users_and_Groups).
When I insert the USB drive, I see the following in dmesg:
[ 7849.682638] usb 2-2: new high-speed USB device number 3 using ehci_hcd
[ 7849.809054] scsi5 : usb-storage 2-2:1.0
[ 7850.813229] scsi 5:0:0:0: Direct-Access SanDisk Cruzer Blade 8.02 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS
[ 7850.816230] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] 7856127 512-byte logical blocks: (4.02 GB/3.74 GiB)
[ 7850.816971] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[ 7850.816975] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 45 00 00 08
[ 7850.817593] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page present
[ 7850.817597] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 7850.820095] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page present
[ 7850.820101] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 7850.859614] sdb: sdb1
[ 7850.864851] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page present
[ 7850.864857] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 7850.864862] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
Any ideas on how to get this working?
Cheers,
Victor

Hi,
I have similar problem after major system upgrade. I can no longer mount removable drives as regular user. Only root can do that.
How can I allow any user (or at least my user) to mount/umount any media with any file system?
I would like to be able to mount in KDE extrernal usb dvd with UDF media, or /dev/sdh5 with NTFS or SD card with FAT32 in usb card reader.
I used to work in KDE before upgrade. Now i'm not authorized..
[11106.331210] usb 1-1.3: new high-speed USB device number 5 using ehci_hcd
[11106.419120] usb-storage 1-1.3:1.0: Quirks match for vid 13fe pid 3600: 4000
[11106.419140] scsi7 : usb-storage 1-1.3:1.0
[11107.443529] scsi 7:0:0:0: Direct-Access USB DISK 2.0 PMAP PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS
[11107.900172] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] 62521344 512-byte logical blocks: (32.0 GB/29.8 GiB)
[11107.901916] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[11107.901920] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 03 41 00 00
[11107.903720] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page present
[11107.903729] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[11107.909408] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page present
[11107.909412] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[11107.928787] sdb: sdb1
[11107.933764] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page present
[11107.933768] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[11107.933771] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk

Stability of Removable Media support in Linux?

Hey all, I'd previously thought support for removable media in linux was very good, and everthing I've used has been detected and mounted correctly and such, however I have experienced some corruption on them, especially on my microSD, as I've recently lost a few photos.
I'm wondering the current status of the support in linux, is it stable, are there any problems, or is it my configuration?
I use Thunar+Hal to manage my removable media.
Thanks

I have found one "odd" issue with Linux: sometimes it delays writing to some external usb card readers. It might be an issue with the reader but it seems absent in XP. I have a kingston multi card reader. I started using it to run my live Arch (Chakra-Live) because it was faster than an ide sd card adapter (odd); however, if I saved my overlay, the drive would show little activity while it was using squashfs on the overlay, and right at the end, the reader light would start flashing but the machine would shut down while the light was still going... and it always botched the save and lost data. It only happened with the external reader; if the card was mounted on the internal reader on my eee-box, or in the ide adapter, it was fine.
Do make sure you do unmount / safely remove the drive, and maybe wait a few seconds. I know my sandisk micromate has no light, so there is no way of telling if has stopped or not.

USB card reader working, but not showing up in removable media... why?

For some reason lately, my USB mounts, but doesn't show up in the Finder left-hand area with the other removable media, such as DVDs. I have to access it via My Computer, where it does show up. And I have to eject it in Disk Utility.
It does show up normally in iPhoto.
Any idea why this might happen?
Thanks,
doug

Welcome! ...I would try Apple's 'Troubleshooting Assistant' first : )
http://www.apple.com/support/ipod/five_rs/

How to catalogue "old" removable media

Hi, I shoot photos, download them from my SD memory into my hard disk, and import them using LR 1.3.
Soon my hard disk gets full and so I can export them burning them onto dvds, retaining all related metadata.
But, what if I want to import from optical media I burned 1 year ago? I have tens of dvd plenty of photos I wished to import in LR, so that in future I could find what I search for using LR good filters.
I don't want to spend time telling LR where the orphan photos are, I simply want LR to answer me 'this photo was on a removable media named "PHOTOS_13".' when I search for a particular keyword.
If I don't go wrong, simpler applications like ACDSee or ThumbsPlus allow this...
Nino

There isn't a way to do this yet in LR, but it sure has been discussed a lot in this forum. Do a forum search for "offline" to find some of what people have been asking for.

Removable media

For some reason I cannot unmount removable media (in my case a USB flash drive) from Thunar using HAL. I believe it is saying that I do not have permission to unmount it. I've tried putting my user in the groups "hal" and "storage". I can't seem to find a solution.
What's strange to me is the fact that it unmounts sometimes but other times not...
Anyone got an idea?

That sounds right! I feel so stupid, it's just when I seen the word "permission" in the error dialog I thought I didn't have sufficient privelages to unmount the media.
Thanks.

Gnome: Add custom command to Removable Media application

I'm trying to setup cvlc to run a DVD when inserted into the drive. I created a cvlc.desktop so it is seen when I go to to the Removable Media menu but it doesn't work because a custom command is required. How do I configure it so that one can be run? The cvlc command to run a DVD is:
cvlc dvd://
Any ideas?

Try modify /etc/PolicyKit/PolicyKit.conf as root:
<match user="$USER">
<match action="org.freedesktop.hal.storage.*">
<return result="yes"/>
</match>
<match action="hal-storage-mount-fixed-extra-options">
<return result="yes" />
</match>
<match action="hal-storage-mount-removable-extra-options">
<return result="yes" />
</match>
</match>
Change $USER for your username... then /etc/rc.d/hal restart as root

Saving Messages to removable media

A user has messages that they would like to transfer to CD or USB Memory stick or some other form of removable media. I understand that the messages are wave files, but how do I get access to them so that I can copy over for them!?

Hi Janis,
I remembered seeing this thread some time ago. Maybe it will give you what you need. The answer is from Hin@Cisco Systems;
http://forum.cisco.com/eforum/servlet/NetProf?page=netprof&forum=Unified%20Communications%20and%20Video&topic=Unified%20Communications%20Applications&CommCmd=MB%3Fcmd%3Dpass_through%26location%3Doutline%40%5E1%40%40.1dd9cedd/3#selected_message
Hope this helps!
Rob

Copy Keychain to Removable Media

Hello All:
I wish to 'copy' my Keychain to removable media, just in case something untoward happens. Of course, the backup is in Time Machine, however without another 'Mac' around I cannot access the data. So, I figured I copy Keychain to removable media (iPod Classic set up as hard drive).
Now, Mac Help says to "Copy your keychain to a location... or copy it to your removable media."
Great! Now for the daft question: How do I (exactly) copy my keychain to removable media?
Many, many thanks in advance!

V.K.:
Many Thanks for the reply. I should have thought it would be as easy as that. Although you are absolutely right that removable media is no better than a TM back-up, considering I will still need a Mac to access Keychain, it is more useful to me. It is easier to travel with the iPod (Classic) and have the info available than to carry a TM, even if I will need to locate a Mac to access.
Many thanks again,
Bill

Kingston DataTraveler shown as having removable media.

I have tried two new Kingston HyperX 3.0 DataTraveler DTHX30/256GB USB Flash drives in my Lenovo T500 2081 with Windows 7 Professional 64-bit, but both show up in Explorer and Storage Disk Management as a device with removable media--as opposed to being a removable drive. It therefore has 0 capacity and cannot be accessed for reading or writing, nor formatting. I have checked that I have the latest Microsoft and Lenovo drivers, but nothing I have tried or that has been suggested by Kingston or other sources fixes this issue. The DTHX30/256GB works fine on computers with Windows 7 32-bit and Windows XP, just not on my Lenovo T500. I have used Diskpart on another computer to clean, partition, and reformat the DTHX30/256GB without any affect on how the T500 sees the drive. I also used a software utility on another computer to "flip" the removable bit without apparent affect in how the T500 sees the drive. What is causing this issue and how to fix it?

could you try the testing repo?
there is the new udev along with new initscripts that should fix it.
other fix would be to change the udev.rules rule according to this:
# never access removable ide devices, the drivers are causing event loops on open()
BUS=="ide", DRIVER!="ide-cdrom", SYSFS{block/removable}="1", GOTO="persistent_end"

Vold Manager never detects the cd rom and any other removable media

Hi,
I have installed solaris 10(i86pc i386 i86pc) on my PC through Oracle Virtual box but I am stucked in a problem that the vold manager never detects the cd rom and any other removable media devices. I have tried many documented methods but could not get solution to this problem. I also stopped the volume manager (vold) and tried to mount the cd rom manually but still could not mount the cd rom.
I don't know how to configure solaris in such a way that it could detect cd rom and any other removable media.
Any help in this regard will be highly appreciated.
Regards,
Anees

Is it an IDE or SCSI CD-ROM? Can you post back the output of the following command?
ls -l /dev/dsk/c*

Windows 7 GPO - Disable All Removable Media then Re-enable, now CD/DVD drive is inaccessible

Ok, this might be better placed in the Windows 7 forum, but we're having some issues with limiting access to removable media via GPO.
We've set up a GPO for Computer Policy, Admin Templates, System, Removable Storage Access, All Removable Storage classes: Deny all access - Enabled
After finding that this was a bit too restrictive we reset it back to Not Configured (and later Disabled to try and force it) but it seems to break our DVD drives on all Win7 x64 machines (the gpo is limited to apply only to these machines). Instead
of the usual icon in my computer it shows a description of the CD/DVD in the drive and the usual "unknown file type" icon. if you take the cd out it shows the usual cd rom icon, but still gives "access denied"
There is one workaround, and that is to set the GPO back to not configured and manually remove the CD/DVD device via device manager, restart, and allow windows to re-install the device drivers.
This is 100% repeatable by applying the same local computer policy (All Removable Storage classes: Deny all access - Enabled" and restarting the machine.
Has anyone else run into this problem before? And how can we fix it without having to go to every machine to remove the DVD drive from device manager?
Thanks,
-Nick

Hi,
after looking on many pages for a solution i always found the same workarounds - but for me deleting the device is no option because you aren't allowed to delete devices without administrative rights. Also I can't expect that our users always have to reinstall
the device.
So i analyzed whats going on in the registry when the key "Deny_All" for blocking RemovableStorageAccess is set to 1 - with the running of gpupdate i realized that Windows is writing a registry key to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\IDE\Device\
named "security". The problem is that windows doesn't delete this key after setting the key "Deny_All" back to 0. Only sometimes it will be deleted, for example when you apply the policy for blocking devices and reverse this setting immediatly without a restart
of windows.
I made a little script which I integrated in the user-gpo (as logon script) for granting access to the removable storage devices:
'****SCRIPT START****
' this script searches for all "security"-keys under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\IDE\ and deletes them
Option Explicit
Const HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE = &H80000002
Dim oReg : Set oReg = GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\.\root\default:StdRegProv")
Dim oShell : Set oShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Dim sPath, aSub, sKey, aSubToo, sKeyToo, dwValue
' Get all keys within sPath
sPath = "SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\IDE"
oReg.EnumKey HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, sPath, aSub
' Loop through each key
For Each sKey In aSub
    'Get all subkeys within the key 'sKey'
    oReg.EnumKey HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, sPath & "\" & sKey, aSubToo
    For Each sKeyToo In aSubToo
        oReg.deleteValue HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, sPath & "\" & sKey & "\" & sKeyToo , "Security"
        if Err.Number<>0 then
            Err.Clear
        end if
    Next
Next
'****SCRIPT END****
The policy for giving access to removable storage looks like this now:
- a logon script is executed which searches for all "security"-keys under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\IDE\ and deletes them
- the setting "All Removable Storage classes: Deny all access" ist set to "Disabled"
I hope this helps...
Regards
Swanson

Existing tools to develop mobile applications( mobile,pda,removable media)

hi java developers,
could anyone answer the question that are asked below
1) what are the existing tools to develop mobile based applications( ex: mobiles, pda , laptop, pocket pc's,smart phones, and removable media )
2)what are the encryption methods present& how to secure communication of files and documents?
awaiting for reply...
thanking you,
vemuri...

this reply is based on what I know,
for mobile I use : Sun's Wireless toolkit , netbeans with mobility pack (best acc ording to me).
for secure data communication: you can use secure server and client sockets, by which you can make your files and documents travel securely between client and server in encrypted form using the personal and public keys.

Absent removable media causes popup

When I try to scan the root directory of some removable media drive I get a popup (twice ;) alerting me to the fact that the disk is not in the drive. This happens before my code returns from the listFiles() or similar method.
For a kind of batch job I'd like to avoid this - else the job would require user intervention to run to completion. How should I go about it? Found nothing in API docs and Harold's book on I/O. Also in the archives here the question popped up in September 2000 but the "user intervention" problem remained basically unadressed. Thanks for any suggests.

I believe I asked this same question, and it might even be the one from Sept. 2000. I can't find that thread either. (I actually think it was my first post to the forum.)
I had the problem that Windows popped up a message dialog when my floppy drive was empty whenever I tried any "java" way of seeing whether it was empty.
The solution that someone posted was to use Runtime.exec to perform a 'dir' command on that drive root directory, and then attempt to read from the process's input stream. If the drive is empty then the 'dir' command will have no stdout (only stderr) and if the drive is "dir-able" then 'dir' will have no stderr (only stdout). AND that pesky dialog does not appear!
Brilliant solution that worked exactly as I wanted. Sorry I can't remember who provided the solution to give credit. Was it DrClap?
/Mel

Indexing removable media

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