TR Forums

I recently got a new computer and I'm looking to merge together all my old data from incremental backups, manual copies and the old hard drive so I only have one copy per drive and maximum space for the currently changing data.

I could do it manually but I was looking around for some utilities to help save time and I'm struggling to find anything. I was envisioning something that scanned all the files and showed the highest level folder or archive that was identical as well as archives and folders that shared some identical files (excluding hidden and system files) to help me quickly determine which bits had been duplicated where. However, all the utilities I have tried have been focused on individual files which isn't a very helpful presentation for sorting data.

I'd appreciate any suggestions.

Take a look at WinMerge (open source) http://winmerge.org/?lang=en
or WMatch (gotta buy it from PC Magazine) http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2365755,00.asp

If you go with WMatch, you're probably better buying access to their whole library for $20, than one program for $8. They have a number of very useful programs.

Also poke around NirSoft and RoadKil, they both have a lot of free utilities, and might have something that would work.

http://www.nirsoft.net/
http://www.roadkil.net/

What OS are you running? I suspect you could cook up a script that does basic MD5 sum comparisons instead of paying money for a utility.

I didn't know WinMerge did folder comparisons. That might come in useful at some point.

I'm running Windows 7. Stuff that does basic comparisons is easy enough to find, I'm looking for a utility that's a bit cleverer and can find folders with the same contents at different points in the directory structure (and ideally inside archives). Although having made a start on doing it manually there may actually be less here than I thought.