Help
After a hard drive crash, I've manged to rescue a lot of data, but some of the files are now named illegally (illegally as in Windows doesn't like them, not illegally as in you'll get arrested if you're not at least as rich as a politician).
The files are text files (e-books downloaded from guttenberg and other sites, and come to think of it some of them are slightly dogdy, copyright wise (Harry Potter, John Wyndham, every Agatha Cristie, etc) so maybe they aren't totally legal in the convensional sense, either...), and the problem is, even though the contents (the text) seems fine (from what I've checked), some of the filenames have become corrupted with illegal file names and no Windows program will load the files.
I can rename them manually, using the Windows rename function (press F2 or click on Rename on the right click menu), but there are lots of them (over four hundred in the directory, though not all have corrupted file names), so I want to rename them with a program to do the lot, but every program I've tried sees, for example:
Christ?e, A --The S?cret? Adversary
as
Christ?e, A --The S?cret? Adversary
(I put the ? symbol in here as i can't find the illegal squidgy character on my keyboard, and all of the programs I've tried see the character as a question mark, so try to load the wrong filename).
Are there any Windows programs (or methods) that will scan a lot of files, and remove non-legal characters from their filenames?
Thanks for any answers.
The files are text files (e-books downloaded from guttenberg and other sites, and come to think of it some of them are slightly dogdy, copyright wise (Harry Potter, John Wyndham, every Agatha Cristie, etc) so maybe they aren't totally legal in the convensional sense, either...), and the problem is, even though the contents (the text) seems fine (from what I've checked), some of the filenames have become corrupted with illegal file names and no Windows program will load the files.
I can rename them manually, using the Windows rename function (press F2 or click on Rename on the right click menu), but there are lots of them (over four hundred in the directory, though not all have corrupted file names), so I want to rename them with a program to do the lot, but every program I've tried sees, for example:
Christ?e, A --The S?cret? Adversary
as
Christ?e, A --The S?cret? Adversary
(I put the ? symbol in here as i can't find the illegal squidgy character on my keyboard, and all of the programs I've tried see the character as a question mark, so try to load the wrong filename).
Are there any Windows programs (or methods) that will scan a lot of files, and remove non-legal characters from their filenames?
Thanks for any answers.
Post edited by ewgf on
Comments
"manged"!
Managed, maybe? LOL!
Yeah, dead helpful, thanks :(
I helped pay your wages in the 80's, and this is how you thank me?
You should be Googling for a solution at this very moment, whilst in the background your e-mail client sends Saucer to WOS, Rapidshare and any other site you can think of.
Actually, come to think of it, you games programmers are all zillionaires anyway, so instead of finding me a utility, just pay for a typist to manually do it. A naked typist should do the job nicely.
Edit: A GIRL, I mean, not Miles (ughh!).
PM your address and details.
I'll give you your money back.
I hear the STIMPY command is useful too...
SHHH!! Don't tell him about that command!
I'd like to know about that command!
Wait till both of them (i.e. STeaM and STeaM) hear about the DEL command ... aptly named after Dom DELuise ... it has something to do with cleaning out your folders and files but more about bloating up the hard drive.
After you've RENed some filestuff on your thingydrive then you run the STIMPY command which sets the System flag on every file and folder and ignores any attempts at deletion.
But I could be wrong ... it might a way to hack yourself into bits (and bytes) with a cartoon butterknife.
Yes, but I'd have to do it seperately, and for each file, I was hoping for a program that would do it all automatically. Anyway, I've done them all now (I think) by renaming them manually via Windows, as thankfully most of them weren't affected by the crash.
Thanks for the suggestions everyone.
Great, that's very good of you.
I can't remember how many copies (originals) of your games in total I bought, but it's around 10,904. Let's round it down to 10,000, shall we?
Or give us Saucer, and we'll call it quits :)
Cash, or cheque for the 10,000?
Oh cash please. Delivered in a Ferrari, if possible.
Okay.
No, I wasn't speaking in the third person...I was protecting the innocent.
Nah.
You could have done a RENAME command in DOS using wildcards (*'s and ?'s). You can do loads at the same time like this...
Uzi 9mm!
Yes, but how would that have helped me with a few hundred files, some of which had partially corrupted file names? There was no noticeable pattern to the filename corruption that I could see.
You asked for help! I tried...
Jaysus!!
Me velly solly!!
This is WoS ... in here we're all "innocent" ... :grin:
In Windows XP, these filenames present no difficulty to Windows Explorer, but command shell programs like ren cannot handle the extended character set.
The solution involves judicious use of the for command.
To convert every filename in the directory to 8.3 (DOS-compatible) form:
Or, if you want to process every subdirectory as well:
Use " " marks so the instruction can also handle filenames containing spaces.