XP "Search" Fault

[RJK]

Using Windows Explorer, when I right-click on a hard drive letter to get
its' pop-out menu and select "Search"
....and type in "disk1" (without the qoute marks of course), I get an empty
results pane !

Now there's lots of sub-folders called disk1 on e:\ I can see them when
manually expanding folder branches !!!

I tried a cmd dos box | dir e:\disk1 /s/p ....zippo ! ...nothing !

ran a chkdsk on that hd, ..no errors,

.....tried disk1. (i.e. with a period) just in case something is going on
with old dos 8.3 / long filename table etc.

Googled brielfy, not found anything of use,

any tips appreciated,

regards, Richard

 

[RJK]

Using Windows Explorer, when I right-click on a hard drive letter to get
its' pop-out menu and select "Search"
...and type in "disk1" (without the qoute marks of course), I get an empty
results pane !

Now there's lots of sub-folders called disk1 on e:\ I can see them when
manually expanding folder branches !!!

I tried a cmd dos box | dir e:\disk1 /s/p ....zippo ! ...nothing !

ran a chkdsk on that hd, ..no errors,

....tried disk1. (i.e. with a period) just in case something is going
on with old dos 8.3 / long filename table etc.

Googled brielfy, not found anything of use,

any tips appreciated,

regards, Richard

SORRY , ....scratch that !!!

....was spelling disk1 with a k should be disc1 with a c <blush>

regards, Richard

 

[Paul]

Using Windows Explorer, when I right-click on a hard drive letter to get
its' pop-out menu and select "Search"
...and type in "disk1" (without the qoute marks of course), I get an empty
results pane !

Now there's lots of sub-folders called disk1 on e:\ I can see them when
manually expanding folder branches !!!

I tried a cmd dos box | dir e:\disk1 /s/p ....zippo ! ...nothing !

ran a chkdsk on that hd, ..no errors,

....tried disk1. (i.e. with a period) just in case something is going on
with old dos 8.3 / long filename table etc.

Googled brielfy, not found anything of use,

any tips appreciated,

regards, Richard

File names can have "funny" characters in them.

List the disk with a utility that provides a listing of the entire
disk, then use a hex editor to look at the names. That's in case
Notepad or Wordpad just ignored the funny characters.

Other issues would be, whether you've got "indexing" turned on or not.
Or, whether you're using WinXP standard search, or you've installed
"Windows Search 4.0". Someone helping you, might want to know a bit
about how your search is set up. If the search comes back pretty
fast, then it's probably using an index. Sometimes a particular
file type, or even an area on the disk (like the contents of your
emails) are missing a handler, and so the search system won't
give you a result for it.

Those are a few ideas you can look at.

My WinXP doesn't have Search 4.0, isn't indexed, and generally,
when I search for something, it's located (slowly).

As an example of a search that might not have good results, I
tried searching for ".svn", and as far as I know, Windows
doesn't like folders with a leading dot. And yet, the vanilla
unindexed search facility on WinXP, was able to find instances of
that string.

Also, don't forget to check your search boxes, and see
if you ticked "Case Sensitive" by accident... Some of the
search tools I use have options like "Whole Words", which
prevents a sub-string from being detected, but I don't
see that as an option in Windows search.

Paul

 

[RJK]

File names can have "funny" characters in them.

List the disk with a utility that provides a listing of the entire
disk, then use a hex editor to look at the names. That's in case
Notepad or Wordpad just ignored the funny characters.

Other issues would be, whether you've got "indexing" turned on or not.
Or, whether you're using WinXP standard search, or you've installed
"Windows Search 4.0". Someone helping you, might want to know a bit
about how your search is set up. If the search comes back pretty
fast, then it's probably using an index. Sometimes a particular
file type, or even an area on the disk (like the contents of your
emails) are missing a handler, and so the search system won't
give you a result for it.

Those are a few ideas you can look at.

My WinXP doesn't have Search 4.0, isn't indexed, and generally,
when I search for something, it's located (slowly).

As an example of a search that might not have good results, I
tried searching for ".svn", and as far as I know, Windows
doesn't like folders with a leading dot. And yet, the vanilla
unindexed search facility on WinXP, was able to find instances of
that string.

Also, don't forget to check your search boxes, and see
if you ticked "Case Sensitive" by accident... Some of the
search tools I use have options like "Whole Words", which
prevents a sub-string from being detected, but I don't
see that as an option in Windows search.

Paul

Many thanks,
...was looking at directories using windows explorer spelt disc1,
....and was searching for them spelt disk1 !!!!!!!
c versus k <blush>

regards, Richard

 

[Paul]

Many thanks,
..was looking at directories using windows explorer spelt disc1,
...and was searching for them spelt disk1 !!!!!!!
c versus k <blush>

regards, Richard

It's too bad the search doesn't have a "fuzzy match" option

Paul

 

[glee]

It's too bad the search doesn't have a "fuzzy match" option

Then it would be called "Google"