Xinorbis is an extensive hard drive analyser that will certainly show you, in detail, precisely where all of your hard drive space has gone.

Firstly you need to tell the program just what exactly you’d like to check (a folder tree, or an entire drive).Then you need to leave Xinorbis to perform its scanning function. By definition it must scan each and every single file in your specified locations, so this will most likely require some time. It’s well worth the wait, however, simply because when the actual process is finished you’ll get detailed reports on every facet of your hard drive use.

So you can see which directories are taking the most drive space, for instance. Or which file types are turning out to be particular resource hogs: movies, audio files, documents, images, whatever it could be on the system.

A “File Attributes” panel lets you know exactly how many of the browsed files are hidden (perhaps useful for security), system files, created, accessed or modified today.

If other people make use of this PC then you will have the ability to sort your reports by file owner, so you may see which user is mainly responsible for the the majority of junk.

It’s easy to search for files by date range, so you could (for example) see how many files were created in the last month, and exactly where they were on your hard disk. A helpful Folder History option allows you to compare the contents of a folder or drive over time. A Duplicate File Finder finds files that might be using up your hard drive space right currently. And you can easily create detailed reports on all this, exporting them in HTML, CSV or HTML formats.

Often it requires a long time to create certain reports, but in the event that you’re the patient type then Xinorbis will reward you with a great deal of drive-related details.

Check it out at Xinorbis.com.

If you have ever experienced the frustration that comes from using Windows Explorer to find specific videos out of a number of similar ones you’ll value the assistance of Media Preview. The default Windows utility performs rather poorly in terms of selecting previews of media files, which at times turn out to be more confusing than helpful. Performance issues occasionally eliminate thumbnails completely. For instance, whenever many big files are saved in the same folder or perhaps the remaining drive space is small, Windows Explorer shows icons in place of thumbnails.

Media Preview features are numerous, such as compatibility with more than 25 file formats, detection of image relevance to prevent showing black thumbnails, ensuring the uniqueness of every file utilizing various media file sequences, and eradicating the constraints that cause unnecessary notifications.

The video thumbnail generator is simple to set up. You simply click the “Select All” tab under “File Formats” in the Media Preview Configuration panel. You then click “Apply,” “OK” and then “Exit” to finish the setup.

You can choose to make the program compatible with audio and image formats as well during setup by choosing their particular tabs and selecting all file types. The slider bar under the “Settings” enables you to adjust speed versus quality depending on your preferences. By default, the program selects the highest quality. The rendering of thumbnails occurs  right away when you choose speed but takes a few seconds when you choose quality, with the delay dependent on the quantity of files in a folder and size of thumbnails. (more…)

When you need to rename files, you’ll value the help of software that automates the process in some manner if you aren’t dealing with only a few files. Maybe you have a substantial collection of audio or image files, which frequently appear with pre-defined names that barely provide you with any kind of clue as to what they contain. If you wish to rename several files in order to have a good organized and consistent structure, then you should look at Advanced Renamer. This is a free of charge file renamer that will assist you in renaming many folders and files at the same time utilizing a wide selection of techniques.

You may use this software in order to rename various types of files, such as  images, GPS info, audio, videos and TV shows. As well as modifying file names, it’s also possible to change attributes and timestamps. Some other good features include; Employing wildcards and regular expressions,real-time preview of new names,changing file extensions, putting in surfix as well as prefix to file names, saving batch presets, and even making use of multiple methods at the same time. (more…)

As disc drives become larger and larger, they appear to fill quicker and quicker. Certainly, there is a whole lot of good stuff you intend to hold on to, but it really is too easy to allow things to get out of control. Next thing you realize that TB hard-drive you bought is 95% filled a bit like that 40 GB drive was a year before. So where did all the space go? Or maybe more correctly, what did you save on there that filled it all up?

JDiskReport is a utility you should utilize to take care of where all your disk space disappeared to. Yeah, you could possibly just run directory listings and sort by size or date and stuff like that, only with JDiskReport it’s simple to look at the bigger picture. It lets you identify what you’ve got on there, and shows it to you in easy to grasp charts and graphs, in addition to textually. At times that pie chart or a bar graph can make sense where a big screen packed with numbers just won’t do. You are able to examine things not only by size, but additionally by size distribution—the number of files you have that are 4- and 16 MB as opposed to between 16- and 64 MB, as an example. Or look at modified date—what number of older files do you have in comparison with how many more recent files? It also breaks them down by file type, so you can establish you have more Word DOC files (all those crucial reports) than you do MP3 files.

JDiskReport is a Java application, so you can utilize it on any computer with an appropriate Java runtime installed. That means it will run on a Linux system, your Mac, or a Windows PC.

Check it out at JGoodies.

GoodSync2Go provides powerful file synchronizing and backup features. Not only powerful and fast, but it also supports multiple jobs to be processed simultaneously.This ensures files from your hard disk or flash drive are synchronized or backed up in just a short span of time. Another commendable feature is its installation method. GoodSync2Go can be installed anywhere you want; either to your hard disk or your flash disk. With this option, you can synchronize files from your USB drive even you’re not on your own computer. The algorithm for synchronization used by GoodSync2Go is intelligent enough to effectively synchronize data from your hard drives and external storage devices.

There’s no question about the performance as far as file synchronization is concerned. But GoodSync2Go fails to come with a very user friendly interface. The user interface is complicated, and lacks explanation about some of the critical functions. It would be better if brief captions about each function were provided so that users could gain a little knowledge about the function even without reading the user’s manual. Also you need to have an Internet connection before you can access user’s manual and FAQ’s.

GoodSync2Go is a synchronization program intended to serve advanced users as its user interface is complicated for novices. However, beginners can also use it as long as they read help files and understand each function. If you’re in need of file synchronization software and you have the right budget, then GoodSync2Go is the software you’re looking for. The price for full license is $39.95, good for multiple users. If you would like to evaluate the product first before buying, a 30 day trial is available for free. Latest release is GoodSync2Go version 8.2.5.6 but updates are ongoing.

Download or purchase GoodSync2Go from Goodsync

Searching for duplicate files one by one is a troublesome thing to do and a waste of your time. How are you going to search for duplicate contents if you don’t exactly know which files have duplicates? Well, you need not worry on how you are going to clean your disk as AllDup will do the job for you.

AllDup is a utility program that can be used to clean your hard drive and external storage devices from duplicate contents. It works by scanning specified hard drives or external storage to find files with duplicate contents, displaying files in a grid, then you have the option whether to delete those files or not.

It gives you a variety of criteria on how will you can search for duplicate files; either by name, by extension, by size, or by attributes. You can select any or all of these criteria for better search results. AllDup supports a variety of file extensions so the program is able to find duplicates for multiple types of files. You also have the option to select which storage device you want to search; either all in one scan or scan for specific storage device. The searching functions are very flexible as it provides a wide variety of search options, you can even filter your search condition to limit the files being displayed. The display of search results is well organized as they are displayed in a table for easy tracking of files including its name, size and file location.

The user interface of AllDup is outstanding. The main window provides a concise environment with icon images reflects its function. A log file is also available to view the last process being performed, search criteria are also organized of easy searching, and updates are also accessible. You can even shift language from English to German. The display window is well organized in a grid displaying file names, number of duplicates, the file size and the date created and last modified. The display window provides user with rich menus and functions for a more flexible display and deletion of duplicate files. It is suggested that you read the help file first to have a better understanding on each function within the display window.

So far, there’s nothing negative found on AllDup as far as the performance, speed, accuracy, and user interface are concerned. It scans drives faster without compromising the overall performance of your computer. However, when deleting duplicate contents, always be careful not to delete something you need to keep!

It’s Freeware and available from www.alldup.de/en_index.htm

Compressing and archiving files is common nowadays because it allows users to shrink large files and store them as a single file for future use. There is a lot of software available for compressing and archiving files some of them are commercial while other are for free. There are also a variety of compressed file formats but the more popular among them is the zip file. Though zip files allows you to store files for longer times, but unlike plain files, once zip files are damaged, accessing it can be very difficult, or worse impossible to retrieve.

Object Fix Zip is a utility program developed to cater to the need of reconstructing damaged zip files. Damage here include all the possible errors that might be encountered when dealing with zip files; corrupt zip files, broken zip files, or files that are downloaded partially. Object Fix Zip recovers such files by creating a new zip file when the program is attempting to retrieve the content of your damaged zip file. If your zip file happens to have a password, all you have to do is supply the password while the program attempts to recover the damaged file. However, it is important to take note that not all damaged zip files can be recovered so if it happens that your damaged zip file fails to be recovered after using Object Fix Zip, then most likely your file is now impossible to recover and a its a lesser possibility that the program performance is at fault.

Now going back, Object Fix Zip’s user interface looks like an installation wizard, with explanations regarding the function of the window are embedded within the window itself. You just need to press the next button to transfer to the next window and so on. Object Fix Zip works on multiple zip files all at once to save time when testing multiple files. Aside from testing damaged zip files and recover content of damaged zip files, the program can also perform task of extracting the content of any zip file. You’ve got an all-in-one package here.

This could be the software to try if you need to recover damaged zip files that contained important data. It runs only on Windows 32 bit platform (from Windows 95 and later) and available as freeware from Essentialdatatools.com

Operating systems like Windows provides a feature to view basic information of your computer’s hard disk; the volume name, the used space, and the free space. But the information that you can view from this is very vague and speaks only on the whole hard disk and not on the individual files or folders contained inside your hard disk. What if you want to find out what particular files consumes too much space on your disk? Maybe one solution for this is to right click on the file or folders then go to properties tab. But what if you have thousands of files inside your hard disk? Repeating this step all over again then taking notes of each file size is a time consuming thing to do. The good news is that there is third party software that analyzes your hard disk in a detailed manner.

Disk Analyzer Pro is commercial software used in analyzing and managing disk space usage. The program scans your storage device such as hard disk and removable devices and then displays the content of your storage device in a grid provided on the program’s interface. Detailed information of the files inside your hard disk is also displayed like the exact location of file, the size of file, and the file type. Disk analyzer provides a very user friendly environment. Every component and function are organized in such a way user won’t get lost or take eternity just to look for a basic function like search or delete files. Disk Analyzer Pro also utilized the use of tabs to allow a more detailed view on the files inside your hard disk. Overall, the interface and performance of Disk Analyzer is very good and it is very convenient to use especially for the novice. (more…)

How much space is taken up by various things on your hard drive? How much empty space is on it? Although it’s simple to run directory listings to get responses to these questions, the responses don’t always make much sense. In the end its just a bundle of numbers on your screen. So if you could view your disk use graphically, it may make much more sense.

Scanner is a program that allows you to do exactly that. Aim it at your hard drive, removable storage, or network volume and have a look at those pretty images. Utilising a sunburst chart—an extended pie chart with concentric rings—this utility will show up the proportional sizes of all major directories,folders and files on your hard drive or storage space. Curious about a specific one? Click it to acquire info specific to your selection.

Its a free utility for Windows computers so if you’d like to test it out, you can get it at the homepage here.

DiskDigger is a file recovery program that goes “beneath the file system” to recover data on a sector-by-sector basis from hard drives, thumb drives, etc. This program is very simple to use. Choose a drive, decide the types of files to be recovered (jpeg, mp3, documents, etc.) and select next.

One thing is that if the filetype you’re attempting to recover isn’t in the DiskDigger’s list, it can’t find it. It would be nice to have a wildcard option or the ability to specify more filetypes. Even so, the most popular filetypes are there and that should be sufficient for most users.

It can scan FAT12 (floppy disks), FAT16 (older memory cards), FAT32 (newer memory cards and hard disks), NTFS (newer hard disks), and exFAT (Microsoft’s new successor to FAT32). It’s also portable as the whole program runs from a self contained *.exe file.

So here’s the deal: DiskDigger is a freeware, simple-to-use data recovery program that works almost as good as similar pay software.

For further info or to download it and try to get those missing files back, head over to the website here.