How to repair and extract broken RAR archives
Broken, damaged or corrupt archives can be quite annoying. It does not really matter if an archive that you have created locally is not working anymore, or if you have downloaded Megabytes or even Gigabytes of data from the Internet only to realize that one or multiple of the files of the archive are either damaged or missing completely.
That does not mean that the data cannot be repaired or extracted anymore. Depending on the circumstances, you may be able to recover the archive fully, or at least partially.
When you try to extract a broken RAR archive, you will receive a prompt requesting that you select the next file in line manually from the local system, or receive the error "CRC failed in file name" in the end.
This is a dead giveaway that a volume is missing or damaged, and that some of the extracted files may be corrupt or even non-present as a consequence.
When you receive that message, you have a couple of options to proceed.
1. Recovery Records
When you create a new archive using WinRAR, you can add so called recovery records to it. To do so, you simply check the "Add Recovery Record" box when the archive name and parameters dialog appears.
You can only do so if you are creating a multi-file RAR or RAR5 archive, and not when you use ZIP as the archive format or want to create a single file only.
The recovery information increases the archives size by 3% by default. This means basically that you will be able to restore up to 3% of missing or damaged data by default.
You can switch to the advanced tab to modify the percentage to either increase or decrease it.
The recovery record is added to the directory the archive is created in. Each file begins with rebuilt so that you always know that this is a recovery file and not part of the original archive.
To recovery the RAR file, you open it in WinRAR, right-click all archives, and select the repair option from the menu. WinRAR will pick up the recovery volume or volumes automatically and use them to repair the archive and add the fixed files to the system.
2. PAR Files
So called Parity files offer a second option. They are often used on Usenet, but come in handy for backups and in all other situations where you need to move large archives to another location.
What makes PAR files great is the fact that you can repair any part of an archive using them. As long as they are at least equal in size to the damaged part, they can be used to repair the archive.
If you have never heard about PAR or PAR2 files before, check out my guide that explains what they do and how you can use them.
You may need to use software to make use of PAR files. Some Usenet clients ship with their own implementation, so that it is not necessary in this case to install a different program to handle the files.
My favorite Usenet client Newsbin for instance supports parity files for example and will download them intelligently whenever they are present and required to extract archives (which it can also extract automatically).
Standalone programs that you may want to consider using are MultiPar or QuickPar.
3. Extract the archive partially
If you don't have access to recovery volumes or parity files, you may still extract the archive partially to your system. This works best if the archive is damaged at the end as you can extract all contents up that point in this case.
You need to enable the "Keep broken files" option on the extraction path and options prompt to do so. If you don't, WinRAR won't keep partially extracted file contents on the disk.
4. Redownload
Last but not least, re-downloading missing or corrupt files may also resolve the issue. This works best if you have downloaded the files faster than they were uploaded for example, or when the original uploader noticed that files were corrupt and uploaded new copies which you can then download to your system to complete the archive.
You may also ask for others to fill the missing or corrupt files, or seek out another destination to get the full copy. On the Usenet, it is sometimes the case that files are corrupt when you are using one provider, but not corrupt when you switch the provider.
That's why some users use so called fillers, secondary Usenet providers that are used whenever the primary provider fails to provide access to a file.
Have another option? Add it as a comment below and share it with everyone.
Now Read: How to pick the right Usenet Provider
Doesn’t Windows 8 know that www. or http:// are passe ?
Well it is a bit difficulty to distinguish between name.com domains and files for instance.
I know a service made by google that is similar to Google bookmarks.
http://www.google.com/saved
@Ashwin–Thankful you delighted my comment; who knows how many “gamers” would have disagreed!
@Martin
The comments section under this very article (3 comments) is identical to the comments section found under the following article:
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/15/netflix-is-testing-game-streaming-on-tvs-and-computers/
Not sure what the issue is, but have seen this issue under some other articles recently but did not report it back then.
Omg a badge!!!
Some tangible reward lmao.
It sucks that redditors are going to love the fuck out of it too.
With the cloud, there is no such thing as unlimited storage or privacy. Stop relying on these tech scums. Purchase your own hardware and develop your own solutions.
This is a certified reddit cringe moment. Hilarious how the article’s author tries to dress it up like it’s anything more than a png for doing the reddit corporation’s moderation work for free (or for bribes from companies and political groups)
Almost al unlmited services have a real limit.
And this comment is written on the dropbox article from August 25, 2023.
First comment > @ilev said on August 4, 2012 at 7:53 pm
For the God’s sake, fix the comments soon please! :[
Yes. Please. Fix the comments.
With Google Chrome, it’s only been 1,500 for some time now.
Anyone who wants to force me in such a way into buying something that I can get elsewhere for free will certainly never see a single dime from my side. I don’t even know how stupid their marketing department is to impose these limits on users instead of offering a valuable product to the paying faction. But they don’t. Even if you pay, you get something that is also available for free elsewhere.
The algorithm has also become less and less savvy in terms of e.g. English/German translations. It used to be that the bot could sort of sense what you were trying to say and put it into different colloquialisms, which was even fun because it was like, “I know what you’re trying to say here, how about…” Now it’s in parts too stupid to translate the simplest sentences correctly, and the suggestions it makes are at times as moronic as those made by Google Translations.
If this is a deep-learning AI that learns from users’ translations and the phrases they choose most often – which, by the way, is a valuable, moneys worthwhile contribution of every free user to this project: They invest their time and texts, thereby providing the necessary data for the AI to do the thing as nicely as they brag about it in the first place – alas, the more unprofessional users discovered the translator, the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, the greater the aggregate of linguistically illiterate users has become, and the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, as it now learns the drivel of every Tom, Dick and Harry out there, which is why I now get their Mickey Mouse language as suggestions: the inane language of people who can barely spell the alphabet, it seems.
And as a thank you for our time and effort in helping them and their AI learn, they’ve lowered the limit from what was once 5,000 to now 1,500…? A big “fuck off” from here for that! Not a brass farthing from me for this attitude and behaviour, not in a hundred years.
When will you put an end to the mess in the comments?
Ghacks comments have been broken for too long. What article did you see this comment on? Reply below. If we get to 20 different articles we should all stop using the site in protest.
I posted this on [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/] so please reply if you see it on a different article.
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Article Title: Reddit enforces user activity tracking on site to push advertising revenue
Article URL: https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
No surprises here. This is just the beginning really. I cannot see a valid reason as to why anyone would continue to use the platform anymore when there are enough alternatives fill that void.
I’m not sure if there is a point in commenting given that comments seem to appear under random posts now, but I’ll try… this comment is for https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
My temporary “solution”, if you can call it that, is to use a VPN (Mullvad in my case) to sign up for and access Reddit via a European connection. I’m doing that with pretty much everything now, at least until the rest of the world catches up with GDPR. I don’t think GDPR is a magical privacy solution but it’s at least a first step.