Need help: tar and huge files
Over the past weekend I had a meltdown on my server's only HD. The best
I could do was nab some tars from the filesystems using LNX-BBC, move
them over the network to a Windows box, reformat and reinstall.
The reformat and reinstall portion went rather smoothly once I was able
to get the Woody bootable CD rom. Huge thanks to whomever created that,
smoothest Debian install I've ever had. Anyway my problem is putting
the files back onto the file system.
Some of the files that were tar.gz'd had file pointers far beyond their
allocated memory. As a result when tar came along to archive up this
file the filesystem coughed up a huge mass of NULLs. Highly
compressable so you'd not notice them in the tar.gz. The problem is
when extracting them they blow up and swap the HD. I've gotten around
that problem by gunzipping the archive over the network into a
compressed folder on an NTFS partition.
The problem is that one file is large enough that tar cannot extract it.
I have tried WinRAR (pukes on it), WinZIP (won't even open the tar as
it is over 4Gb), Optimal Archiver (dies trying to extract the files),
gnu tar compiled for DOS (can't write to the compressed folder from
inside a DOS window) and tar on Linux extracting all across the network
(dies on the file, says it cannot allocate more space on the device).
I've been able to look into the tar with Optimal Archive and know that
the file in question is 3Gb in size uncompressed. Up from the 10Kb
reported. I have a sneaking suspicion that tar is crapping out around
the 2Gb mark.
Does anyone have any ideas on how to get that file out from the tar so I
may access the files that reside after it in the tar? There's about
2,000 more files in there I'd really like to pull out. 1/2 my home dir,
my GF's homedir and two services home directories. I also have two more
tgzs from different mount points from the same meltdown. I'm almost
certain they contain the same problem and would like to be able to avoid
it when I get there.
--
Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your
ICQ: 5107343 | main connection to the switchboard of souls.
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