Find it fast: 6 hard drive searching apps

Need to find a specific e-mail message or file on your hard drive? You're not alone. Fortunately, six new localised-search apps let you search your hard drive.

If you're like most people, you stuff your hard drive with more digital photos and ripped music files every day. Maybe you toss them willy-nilly into your My Documents folder in Windows, or -- if you're really organised -- you slip them into My Music or My Photos. If you're in business, you probably also pack away documents and correspondence that, if lost, could cost you time and money to recover. But while it's handy keep all of your files on your PC's hard drive, it's not quite so simple to find a specific one in the jumble. Before you know it, your PC has turned into a black hole where all important information goes to die.

That's why, right now, a handful of companies are fighting to build the holy grail of desktop search: an app that will quickly, easily find your files no matter where you stashed them. Like search engines that scour the Internet and produce results in seconds, these new hard drive versions can instantly pull up references to files based on keywords, file types, or designated folders. For example, these apps can hunt down your vacation photos as long as they have something searchable, such as the words summer 2004, somewhere in their name.

But not all of these desktop search engines are alike. We looked at six, including Lookout, which was recently purchased by Microsoft. (As this roundup went to press, search engine leader Google released a beta of its own search engine tool, and Microsoft is expected to announce its own shortly.) Some search only e-mail correspondence, while others can find almost any file on your hard drive and also search the Internet. Some index your drive as you use it, constantly updating tables of data so that the search results are produced quickly. Others index on the fly, taking perhaps a few more seconds to produce specific results, but requiring less system resources. Most are free; one, X1, is not. Read our reviews for help in choosing the hard drive detective to dig out your data.

		Blinkx  Blinkx doesn't index your entire hard drive, but the files it misses are the image files most people want to find. We'll wait for the next release of this desktop search tool. Full review

		Copernic Desktop Search  While it doesn't search the Internet, Copernic Desktop Search locates all file types on your hard drive and offers a pleasing interface. Full review

		Google Desktop (Beta)  With Google Desktop, you can search for files on your hard drive just as easily as you can search the Internet. Full review

		HotBot  HotBot has potential, combining desktop searches with Internet searches, but this beta version has a few glitches to overcome. Full review

		Lookout  Regular Outlook fans will find this desktop search tool easy to use, but the rest of us may be frustrated. Full review

		X1 Search  This standalone desktop search tool, X1 Search, is blazingly fast, but costs about $100 more than the nearest competitor. In our opinion, the free apps perform just as well. Full review