XP caches aborted extracted file

[msholm]

Hy Readers, would be very nice to get some help here!

I extracted a big .RAR archive to a harddisk that did not have enough free
space available. The extracted file was written until the harddsik was full
and then aborted.
Now if I try to extract to any harddisk with plenty of space available I get
an error at the end of the extraction process, seems to be exactly where the
first extraction process had to be canceled because of no more space on the
harddisk. The .RAR archive is fine and healthy!

I think the problem is that Windows cached the extracted file somewhere or
remembers the file size!!! As soon as I extract the file again it has its
full size on the disk! BUT when I first extracted the file, you could see
that it started as small file and became bigger and bigger! Now it starts as
full sized file. I hope you understand what I mean ;-)
My question is, where is Windows putting or caching this file or holds
information about that file?! So I can delete it and beginn the extraction
from 0! I Checked all Temp folders, but I could not find it.

Please help me, checked some hours to get more infos about that but no go!
Thanks in advance,
M. Stoerholm

 

[Lord Evermore]

The software is probably using the system-defined temporary folder to extract the file (usually the Temp folder under your username's Documents and Settings folder), and then would move the file from that temp folder to the final destination. Your primary hard drive does not have enough space for the extraction to be completed, no matter where you have told the software to place the extracted file.

Check the configuration of the software. There should be a place where you can define what to use as the temporary folder, or disable the temporary folder entirely.

Alternately, move some files off your primary hard drive to the other drive enough to make space for the extracted file, then put them back when you're done.

 

[msholm]

First thanks for your reply! My system disk (with all temp folders and all apps) has plenty of space available, the extracted file was on the not-enough-space disk and should have been extracted there..
I checked the temp folders also, for the extraction-app and all windows temp folders, but there is nothing regarding that file. I also disabled the temp-folder setting in the extraction app but nothing changed 🙁
I guess windows -MAYBE- stores some info about the file in the "System Volume Information"!?

 

[Lord Evermore]

System Volume Information is only used by the System Restore function in Windows. Applications don't normally have access to read or write anything to that folder (because the user does not have permission to read or write there either).

There's no reason that Windows would be caching a partially extracted file, and no reason it ought to be "remembering" any file size or previous locations.

Would this happen to be a password protected file?

 

[msholm]

Ok, I got it working now 🙂 Booted XP in command-line safe mode and extracted there with no problems! Thank you for your help!!!

 

[CTho9305]

The software is probably using the system-defined temporary folder to extract the file (usually the Temp folder under your username's Documents and Settings folder), and then would move the file from that temp folder to the final destination. Your primary hard drive does not have enough space for the extraction to be completed, no matter where you have told the software to place the extracted file.

Check the configuration of the software. There should be a place where you can define what to use as the temporary folder, or disable the temporary folder entirely.

WinRAR does that, and doesn't respect any options I change. It's really annoying 🙁.