Direct mass storage device file indexing

A computer readable medium containing instructions which, when performed by one or more processors disposed in an electronic device, performs a method for creating a file index for data stored on an MSD volume, the method comprising the steps of:

• identifying an indexable file stored on the MSD volume by file extension;
• iteratively accessing clusters associated with the identified file in a sequential manner from the MSD volume using a plurality of passes through the MSD volume;
• examining a cluster to determine if the cluster contains sufficient metadata to create an entry in the file index for the identified file;
• if the cluster contains sufficient metadata, then passing parseable data for the identified file from the cluster for inclusion in the file index;
• if the cluster does not contain sufficient metadata, then storing a work item for the cluster in a queue in system memory of the device to indicate that one or more additional clusters are needed to enable passing parseable data for the identified file;
• and
• generating the file index using the parseable data.

A system for processing content stored on a volume that is formatted using FAT, comprising:

• a file index processing layer supporting an indexing process for caching FAT table data, and for queuing request items associated with portions of files or directories on the volume, the queued request items being used for caching data that is used for generating a file index for the processed content;
• a media core layer that is operatively coupled to the media processing layer and arranged for receiving call back notifications from the file index processing layer by which directory data or file data is identified to a caller operating in the media core layer;
• memory operatively coupled to the file indexing processing layer for implementing a FAT table cache and implementing a request item queue arranged for queuing the request items;
• and
• an interface for reading content stored on the volume.