Quoting kryyst

The reality is for the amount of data you want your best solution would be to get an external USB drive and back it all up to that. It's faster more easy to manage and a lot easier to recover from.

i hear ya man. i really do. it's a resources issue-- i'm trying to work w/ what i've got. indeed, i would like to go buy as you've suggested. in fact, the real reason i'm suddenly all hot on this Archive Project is-- on bootup, my ASUS board is warning me that the drive is going to crap-out any day now. yikes!

Just for kicks-- do you have a recommended shopping spot for such an item? i buy newegg.com , but maybe you know of something for HDD goodies?

thanks!!!

Quoting kryyst

Sorry but what you are looking for doesn't exist.

yea.. i was beginning to think that myself. in fact, i probably posed this same inquiry a year or so ago in other forums, and received similar feedback.

if i were better at scripting, and knew which language to use (or even just Regular Expressions), chances are i could come up w/ a report to serve the purpose.

but-- it's all moot, really, as i've already begun the process-- totally manually. it's not really as bad as i was predicting it to be. granted, it's not going to be as well organized-- but as long as i keep the MS .xls file i've created to manage the process, i should be okay when it comes to searching for archives.

the Surprise:
i should have expected this-- but how'd one say... "i wasn't expecting it! doh!" -- some of the source data is causing errors when i'm making my Nero DVD Images. (i learned the hard way to create a intermediate "test image" on the hard drive, before wasting another blank DVD media). it's weird-- i can move the folders around on the disc (i.e. files are being read okay), but when it comes to "burning" it, it's giving me read errors. the first time it happened, i found the two .WAV files from a "Sound Forge / Acid" project -- Win Explorer refused to "move" them cause the couldn't be read-- so i simply omitted them from the Image, and Violla! it worked. but not this time-- Explorer didn't complain about any files on my "test move", so i have no way of telling which is the "bad file". it's frustrating.
(suggestions anyone?)

Fortunately, i've successfully extracted much of the "most valuable" data already.

reaction to surprise
I'm currently in search of recommended DVD bulk data recording software.
(it's not possible to do an "Image" right? i mean-- have an "Image" span several media? i suppose that's what i was trying to do in the first place... sort of).

ISO Burner was able to "extract" the faulty data, but money is tight right now-- so i can't afford to buy that license. long story short-- i'm open to suggestion if anyone has a recommended Burning kit (other than Nero 6 OEM).
Deep Burner is giving me Joliet complaints... wants to change file names... id rather avoid that!] so i'm off to try some new stuff!

thanks for the reply, Kryyst. it's nice to come back and have a little chat.

(note: i also posted an inquiry about Folding at Home on Linux...)