easy program to compare two check sums ?

[redmike]

In another thread (include empty partition in full back up ?) that I have going we drifted into the subject of check sums but it seems as if it's something that (almost) every one will want to do and is therefore worthy of it's own thread.

I'm trying to find a program that will check files in two different locations and verify that the check sums are the same. Talking about 4GB files here.

Simple - apparently not ?!

I've tried about 6 of them in the last 4 days. Some of the ones I've tried lock up half way thru; some will provide a checksum but not check it against another program etc etc -

And they all seem to totally drain my system of resources - and it has a lot !

I have tried a couple of command line programs but they'll check a file but not compare it - unless I'm too lacking in command line ability to manage it :-)

md5summer looks like it will do what I want but the help is almost useless and I can't get it to work.

So if anyone can point me (and many many others) to a program please do !

regards,

Mike

[dadarara]

Did you try "CRC shell extention" www.sirocco.f9.co.uk ?

[redmike]

-{ Quote: "Did you try "CRC shell extention" www.sirocco.f9.co.uk ?" }-

no, but I will - thanks..

Mike

[redmike]

-{ Quote: "no, but I will - thanks..

Mike" }-

I downloaded it and it worked on about 7 files that I tried it on but not on *.tib files. I just get an "error" message :-(

From the read me file .....

"The extension will not calculate the CRC of a group of files
or a folder. Be warned that if you select a large file the
CRC will take while to calculate, this will not happen until
you click on the "File CRC" tab, it calculates CRC's at around
2MB/sec. The CRC is only calculated once for the file so if
you click on the "File CRC" tab again there will be no delay."

I tried it on a 4GB file and not a folder.

any ideas ?

Mike

[nick s]

Hi redmike,

hkSFV (http://www.big-o-software.com/products/hksfv/) always worked well for me (although I never used it with files as large as .tib files).

Nick

[Acronis Support]

Hello Mike,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/).

Please try the MD5 sum calculator available at our site (http://www.acronis.com/files/support/xcsc.zip). In order to use it please unpack the downloaded file and choose the file you wish to check.

Thank you.
--
Ilya Toytman

[nick s]

To follow up on hkSFV and large files, I stress-tested it on a directory with eighteen 4GB image files. It took about thirty minutes to successfully generate its list of MD5 hashes:

b04bc6c5787ec1285cde97183c2ec907 *040505.001
671e316b8c1eda601732a790c7d2568c *040505.IMG
65197fdbd99db8dd42f88aa2292dab56 *040605.001
bd25a7c75a7352ab330038caba6888e8 *040605.IMG
3f6840c4edf45b08c5732ad835c0a6ff *040705.001
f25236ae1ef66c28d060d635d78285bf *040705.IMG
632fcc0edb65eda514e063b8001a9f9e *040905.001
ca7249a6b1429ec700e3c59c7b00c6fd *040905.IMG
ced43e6c33563e05a2641b4dcb01481b *041005.001
df8bfaea23834bc22602362bc1a7b912 *041005.IMG
e870b50821579eeb7da7da63328eba1f *041105.001
5b87e0bbd620c441b2e39006cda4c291 *041105.IMG
a1bff3409517c2d3ffa7acaae355ea81 *041205.001
0e0f4b6f1186d3bda188a8f65296b39e *041205.IMG
f64084057ad10626ea0763335f755f00 *041305.001
619e604b924a13930ad484db963b18b6 *041305.IMG
584131de08e6c2aa3f592531eaa96a4e *041405.001
ff454fd81843c6d482c1b9dc3206a9b0 *041405.IMG

Note that these are not TI image files.

Nick

[FanJ]

Another suggestion:
Beyond Compare, not free, a very nice file/folder/registry/etc comparison tool.
http://www.scootersoftware.com/index.html

It uses the CRC HASH algorithm.

Here comes a screenshot of its user-interface (command-line also available), comparing a TI-backup which was split up.
I always split up my TI-backups ;)

[redmike]

-{ Quote: "To follow up on hkSFV and large files, I stress-tested it on a directory with eighteen 4GB image files. It took about thirty minutes to successfully generate its list of MD5 hashes:

Note that these are not TI image files.

Nick" }-

thanks for you efforts.

did you get the "error" message whilst it was checking ?

regards,

Mike

[nick s]

-{ Quote: "thanks for you efforts.

did you get the "error" message whilst it was checking ?

regards,

Mike" }-Glad to help. No error messages; CPU usage for hkSFV was a consistent 23% during the process.

Nick

[redmike]

-{ Quote: "Hello Mike,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/).

Please try the MD5 sum calculator available at our site (http://www.acronis.com/files/support/xcsc.zip). In order to use it please unpack the downloaded file and choose the file you wish to check.

Thank you.
--
Ilya Toytman" }-

thanks I just used it - and the very good news is that the full back up on my machine (that I have run an Acronis image check on) and the ones on my dvds have the same check sums !

The only comment I would make about the sum calculator on your website is that it's a pity that it doesn't compare two files and/or doesn't have the option to save a textfile with the info. I saved a jpg of the info as the alternative would be to cut and paste the info to a text file. Anyway this is not the end of the world as I only expect to do it once a month.

thanks

Mike

P.S. Out of interest - it seems that all the check-sum programs suck all the available ram out of the system - is that the nature of the beast ?

[redmike]

-{ Quote: "To follow up on hkSFV and large files, I stress-tested it on a directory with eighteen 4GB image files. It took about thirty minutes to successfully generate its list of MD5 hashes:

sorry for the confusion, my comment about the program not working on my 4 GB tib files was in reply to

Originally Posted by dadarara
Did you try "CRC shell extention" www.sirocco.f9.co.uk ?

I'll go back and try hkSFV again ..

Mike

[redmike]

-{ Quote: "Another suggestion:
Beyond Compare, not free, a very nice file/folder/registry/etc comparison tool.
http://www.scootersoftware.com/index.html

It uses the CRC HASH algorithm.

Here comes a screenshot of its user-interface (command-line also available), comparing a TI-backup which was split up.
I always split up my TI-backups ;)" }-

thanks, I took a look at it and it looks like a nice program. Since I only want to compare a couple of check sum files every month it wouldn't really be worth the $30 ..

regards,

Mike

[Ed Y]

I use a free program called Directory Printer from this site (http://www.karenware.com/powertools.asp) . It does a lot of things with directories, folders and files, one of which is computing checksums with the option to save the data. As far as I know those it doesn't do any comparisons.

[Menorcaman]

Hi Mike,

It's a real shame <Easy MD5 Creator 1.4> (http://www.tbhccs.com/downloads/yet-more-downloads/easy-md5-creator.zip) hasn't been updated to work with files larger than 2000MB as, apart from that, I believe it has the functionality and usability you're looking for. Me? I will continue to split my images into 635 MB or 2000MB chunks (depending on whether the image spans multiple DVDs or not) and enjoy the program's convenience until I find something better.

Regards

[MiniMax]

-{ Quote: "To follow up on hkSFV and large files, I stress-tested it on a directory with eighteen 4GB image files. It took about thirty minutes to successfully generate its list of MD5 hashes:" }-
Seems fair. 18 x 4 GB = 72 GB = 73,728 MB. 73,728 MB / (30 x 60) sec = 41 Mbps/sec.

These are the numbers I get:

Size Action Start Stop Seconds Speed (Mbps)
------------- ------- ----------- ----------- ------- ------------
3,212,569,994 Calculate 18:11:21,92 18:12:55,15 93 32.94
3,212,569,994 Verify 18:12:55,17 18:14:29,64 94 32.59
3,887,047,033 Calculate 18:14:29,64 18:16:11,95 102 36.34
3,887,047,033 Verify 18:16:11,95 18:17:55,19 103 35.99
492,504,511 Calculate 18:17:55,19 18:18:08,01 13 36.13
492,504,511 Verify 18:18:08,01 18:18:20,87 13 36.13
3,212,569,994 Calculate 18:18:20,87 18:19:54,48 94 32.59
3,212,569,994 Verify 18:19:54,48 18:21:27,72 93 32.94
3,887,047,033 Calculate 18:21:27,73 18:23:10,65 103 35.99
3,887,047,033 Verify 18:23:10,65 18:24:52,90 102 36.34
492,504,511 Calculate 18:24:52,90 18:25:06,44 14 33.55
492,504,511 Verify 18:25:06,44 18:25:19,33 13 36.13
-----
Average 34.81 Mbps
=====

While running, md5sum (http://www.etree.org/md5com.html) used 712 KB of memory, and 30%-40% of an AMD Athlon 2600+ CPU running at 2,08 GHz.

[beenthereb4]

Here is one that is relatively fast (depending on the speed of your computer) and small, simple and always available:

Hashtab (http://www.beeblebrox.org/hashtab/)

Just select a file's properties and you will have a new tab for the MD5 CRC, Etc. along with a compare button.

[vareniky]

-{ Quote: "Here is one that is relatively fast (depending on the speed of your computer) and small, simple and always available:

Hashtab (http://www.beeblebrox.org/hashtab/)

Just select a file's properties and you will have a new tab for the MD5 CRC, Etc. along with a compare button." }-
Yep! My vote goes to hashtab as well though I have no image as large as mentioned it does a pretty good job comparing hashes between two files
and it shows hashes in three formats

[FanJ]

-{ Quote: "Here is one that is relatively fast (depending on the speed of your computer) and small, simple and always available:

Hashtab (http://www.beeblebrox.org/hashtab/)

Just select a file's properties and you will have a new tab for the MD5 CRC, Etc. along with a compare button." }-

Thanks for your suggestion, Beenthereb4 ! :D
I didn't know that tool.

Cheers, Jan.

[Menorcaman]

-{ Quote: "Here is one that is relatively fast (depending on the speed of your computer) and small, simple and always available:

Hashtab (http://www.beeblebrox.org/hashtab/)

Just select a file's properties and you will have a new tab for the MD5 CRC, Etc. along with a compare button." }-Hi beenthereb4,

Thanks for the heads up. Small and perfectly formed as they say :).

I see it works fine on .tib files greater that 2000MB (tested on a 4.2GB file). Just a pity it can't calculate a single checksum for an entire tree of files (recursive) and then save the result. Still, it'll do nicely for simple file comparisons and I can still use Easy MD5 Creator when burning DVD compilations as detailed in another thread.

Regards

[Nightcrawler]

-{ Quote: "In another thread (include empty partition in full back up ?) that I have going we drifted into the subject of check sums but it seems as if it's something that (almost) every one will want to do and is therefore worthy of it's own thread.

I'm trying to find a program that will check files in two different locations and verify that the check sums are the same. Talking about 4GB files here.

Simple - apparently not ?!

I've tried about 6 of them in the last 4 days. Some of the ones I've tried lock up half way thru; some will provide a checksum but not check it against another program etc etc -

And they all seem to totally drain my system of resources - and it has a lot !

I have tried a couple of command line programs but they'll check a file but not compare it - unless I'm too lacking in command line ability to manage it :-)

md5summer looks like it will do what I want but the help is almost useless and I can't get it to work.

So if anyone can point me (and many many others) to a program please do !

regards,

Mike" }-

I recommend FSUM, it has all the hashes and bat files can be written to serve your purpose.

Here's how I do it:

C:\Checksums
S:\Acronis
R:\Acronis

I wrote a simple Generate.bat and place it in the S:\Acronis folder, I run it and it outputs a text file to C:\Checksums.

I then wrote a Compare.bat and place it in the R:\Acronis folder, I run it and it uses the text file from C:\Checksums.

This way you know that the two folders match.

PS: The bat files are easy to write and if anybody needs them I would be happy to help.

[Nightcrawler]

Fsum is also useful for DVD backups.

Burn the acronis.tib, fsum.exe, checksum.txt, verify.bat to the DVD and then later down the road you can verify that the DVD is still valid even if your using someone else's machine with nothing to install.