DriveSort sorts the directory tables of a volume formated in FAT12/FAT16/FAT32. This sort orders the files in each folder according to their short or long names alphabetic order.

The majority of recent operating systems sort the files before showing them to the user, either by name, by size or by whatever the user choose. However, it is not always the case in embedded OSes on small portable devices like MP3 players. On these platforms, the lack of resources (CPU, memory) can lead the developper to make it display or play the files in the order in which they are on the disk.

This order depends mostly of the order in which they were added to the disk. DriveSort can change this order to help such devices to play or view their files in the order you want, by putting them on the disk in a customizable order.

Two automated sort method are available :

• The "LFN Sort", which sorts the files and directories according to the alphabetic order of their Long File Names.
• The "SFN Sort (I-Bead)", which sorts the files and directories according to the alphabetic order of their Short File Names.
• ( A file or directory on a FAT volume has always a short file name, which is the old MS-DOS 8.3 name format. It means that the name part of a filename must have at most eight characters, and its extension at most three. A file or dir can also have a long file name, which can be a bit longer than 250 characters, and supports Unicode characters. If a filename contains mixed case, or has one part that doesn't fit in the 8.3 convention, the file has both short and long filenames. )

Each mode can be configured with the sort options available in the popup menu on the right of the sort icon :

• Choice of sort order :
  • Ascending order, a file named aaaa.txt will be stored in the name table before one named aaab.txt. [Default]
  • Descending order (aaab.txt before aaaa.txt)
• Choice of folder layout :
  • Before the files: Groups the folders together at the top of the name table, and sorts the files separately.
  • After the files: Groups the folders after the files, and sorts the files separately. [Default]
  • Mixed with the files: No difference between files and folders, they are all sorted together.

DriveSort also features a manual ordering mode for files: the "playlist" mode, in which you can drag the files in the order you want. This mode is only available on the files having a long file name, because it alters the content of the short file name of the ordered files. If it was used on a file having only a short file name, the name would be lost. The short file name is altered to become something like "XXXXXXXX.EXT", where X is a digit from the file's playlist number, and EXT is the file original extension. The long file name of the files is not modified by this method, and the files are automatically ordered on the disk using the "SFN Sort" method. This is particularly useful for multimedia players which play the songs using the short file name alphabetic order, and display them using their long file names, such as the I-Bead, the Sony K750i, some devices for GBA/NDS... The playlist mode is initially able to move .MP3, .OGG and .WMA files around, to avoid files that are not really part of a playlist, like system files. If you want to add other extensions to these, use the Extensions... menu in the playlist menu, or add them to the RecognizedExtensions option of the DriveSort.ini settings file.

This program works directly with the basic structures of the filesystem, so be careful when using it, and backup anything important before.
DriveSort can create a backup of a disk or a partition from the disk selection dialog.

Use this program at your own risks.

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Download: [ DriveSort (EN, Windows)  ]