[wellylug] Partitioning [tar -M?]

[Jo Booth]

On 1/05/2006, at 09:55 , E.Chalaron wrote:

> Hi all
>
> I have been given an external HD by a customer of mine. He is using  
> Wndows XP
> and of course the M9 mini pod disk is coming with a filesize  
> limitation of 4
> Gb.
> Trouble is that most of his movies are coming to 14 to 20 Gb each.  
> No way I
> can copy that across. I cant split the file for some technical  
> reasons.
> My next step would be to reformat the M9 disk... but what to use as a
> partition that windows can accept later ?
>
> Thanks
> E

Would it be possible to split an "archive" of the file -- rather than  
exporting several shorter movies? Might be simpler than re-formatting?

Use tar and the -M option to split the file across multiple "volumes"  
in this case with each "volume" a different 4Gb file?

Something like:

tar -c -M --tape-length=4194304 --file=file1.tar largefile.tgz
With the 4194304 being 4gb x 1024mb/gb x 1024b/mb, which should make  
one 4gb file then tar ask for another "disk".. but if you use the  
command

n file2.tar

It should save it as another 4gb file and so on. You may need to  
experiement with sizing..  Likewise when unpacking:

tar -x -M --file=file1.tar largefile.tgz

and use the n file2.tar etc when prompted for the other "volumes"

There is a windows version of tar available for unpacking: <http:// 
gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/tar.htm>  I'd imagine you'd need to  
unpack it onto something that could handle 4Gb+ files tho ;)