list external drives

Question

in java, you can use File.listRoots() to get all drives in the system. I'm looking to get only the external drives, i.e. USB drives, external hard disks, optical drives, floppy etc'.
is there any way to do it in java? if not, native c++ code would be good as well. in that case, i need both windows and linux code

thanks

Answer 1

You could use WMI or look into

GetRawInputDeviceList()

GetRawInputDeviceInfo()

This should get you started

C++

http://cboard.cprogramming.com/windows-programming/114294-getting-list-usb-devices-listed-system.html

Java

http:// forums.java.net/jive/thread.jspa?threadID=37942

Answer 2

To get file system info, use something like:

import java.io.*;
import javax.swing.filechooser.*;

public class DriveTypeInfo
{
  public static void main(String[] args)
  {
      System.out.println("File system roots returned by   FileSystemView.getFileSystemView():");
      FileSystemView fsv = FileSystemView.getFileSystemView();
      File[] roots = fsv.getRoots();
      for (int i = 0; i < roots.length; i++)
      {
        System.out.println("Root: " + roots[i]);
      }

      System.out.println("Home directory: " + fsv.getHomeDirectory());

      System.out.println("File system roots returned by File.listRoots():");

      File[] f = File.listRoots();
      for (int i = 0; i < f.length; i++)
      {
        System.out.println("Drive: " + f[i]);
        System.out.println("Display name: " + fsv.getSystemDisplayName(f[i]));
        System.out.println("Is drive: " + fsv.isDrive(f[i]));
        System.out.println("Is floppy: " + fsv.isFloppyDrive(f[i]));
        System.out.println("Readable: " + f[i].canRead());
        System.out.println("Writable: " + f[i].canWrite());
      }
   }
}

Also see this, this and this question.