Theoretically, in Windows, you could put a bunch of files in a folder and just use Windows Explorer to search for text in the files. If the text that the files contained was just the list of files on the CDs it would do a fair job. Searching in Word, within one document, seems much faster, but that may be partly because I've got so many files in most of my folders that it makes the WinExplorer search look slow. (And I usually use that search mode when I've "lost" the folder, rather than within known locations, so it's usually a search of all 800,000+ data files on the drive.)

With a hundred or so files, one for each CD, isolated so you could search only the folder where those files are it might be reasonably quick. This assumes, of course, a recent Win version. Win2K and WinXP both allow "find in files" searches, but I don't recall whether older ones like Win98 have that feature.

Obviously I don't know what similar search capabilities Macs have.

And Robin - "only if you know what you're doing?." I suppose we should assume that somebody who uses a Mac knows how to drive it, even if I/we don't - or at least we should be polite and pretend that we believe... ... (For some reason it always comes out sounding strange when I try to be polite on purpose.)

John