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[dylanstan]

Hi there:

One of the many good things JRiver MC has, it's the possibility of keep a database of CD's and DVD's that we read with MC. When you insert a cd or dvd and read it with MC it keeps it in the database and you can easily find then with the Volume Name field. It doesn't matter that you've or don't have the cds or dvds into the cdreader, you always can find if you've that song, that album, that artist or wathever you're looking for. Well, this's great, but...

In the last years i didn't make backups of my music or films in DVD's, i do it in external harddrives. And i've several harddrives connected to MC, but i've some others harddrives not connected to MC. Won't be great if when you connect a external harddrive to MC and MC read it, it will keep the data in the same way it does with the cd's and dvd's? You plug the harddrive, MC read it, you state a Volume Name for it and, doesn't matter if the external harddrive it's connected or not, you can find easily what stuff you've .

Example: i've got a harddrive with old films that i've seen that it's in a closet with other harddrives. Some of the films are in good quality, some of them are in not so good quality. Navigating the internet i find this old film in very good quality, i know that i've it but i don't know the quality. Right now, if i want to know it, i've to unplug some hardrive connected to mc and connect the one with the film, therefore maybe i've to try several harddrives 'cause i don't know for sure in wich harddrive that film is. If the behavior of MC were the same with cd's, dvds and external hardrives it would be really easy to find what and in wich harddrives you've what you're looking for, without being connecting and disconnecting harddrives.

I'm not sure if i've explain well what i want cause of my limited english, but basically it's to have the same behaviour for external harddrives that MC already have for CD's and DVD's. Is it possible?

Maybe there's a way to do it that i have not find. In this case if someone can point me in the right direction will be great.

[blgentry]

MC essentially already does this.  If you unplug a hard drive, MC should still show all of the media that's on that hard drive.  It should show a red circle with a line through it next to each item.  This means that MC had the file, but that the file is now missing because the hard drive is gone.

So, all you have to do is give your hard drives dedicated drive letters.  There are Windows specific procedures to force Windows to assign the same letter to a hard drive every time.

After you've done this, and imported all of your media into MC, you should see EVERYTHING you have.  You just won't be able to play the stuff that's on the missing drives until you plug them in.

You'll want to set the Fix Broken Links option to NO for this to work perfectly.  Tools > Options > Library & Folders > configure auto import > tasks > fix broken links > No .

Brian.

[dylanstan]

Brian:
many thanks for point me out in this direction. So, the key it's give different dedicated drive letters to each external harddrive. OK!!!

I still think that the other way would it be easier and won't be limited. I don't think that i'll reach the limit (between 20/25 hardrives), but... there's a limit, the thing it's that it's not a problem right now and for me it won't be in a time.

Reading your answer i've another question refered to this

You'll want to set the Fix Broken Links option to NO for this to work perfectly.  Tools > Options > Library & Folders > configure auto import > tasks > fix broken links > No

Until now i was using "Yes (protect files on missing drives)". What are the cons of this set in opposition to "No"?

[blgentry]

^ At this moment, I can't recall exactly when "yes, protect files on missing drives" causes issues.  But I've read numerous threads that documented problems with this setting.  I think it's mostly when using NAS drives that may not be available all the time because the NAS box is turned off.  In those cases this causes a lot of confusion because things get ignored and/or re-imported.

So, like a lot of things with computers, I try to simplify my life and just use the safe settings.  So I set this to NO and I'm certain MC will never make a wrong decision about removing a missing file.  It then becomes my responsibility to resolve missing files.  I find this to be a good solution because I would like to know any time MC is missing files.  By this time I know how to use MC to remove files that I want to delete or forget.  So if a file is missing I want to know!  This probably means something is wrong and I need to figure it out.  So it's a win-win situation for me:  MC never does anything weird, and it potentially will inform me when something else weird happens. 

Brian.

[dylanstan]

Many thanks for your answer!!!

I've not had any "undesirable trouble" with my setting. The only times that MC has remove files that i did not want to be removed has been when 2 harddrives share the same drive letter. I've learn how to avoid it. So, problem solved