Spanning Archives

CuteZIP's robust archive spanning functionality allows you to break up a large archive into smaller volumes. CuteZIP can later reassemble the volumes back into the original archive. You can span the volumes across multiple disks or save the volumes to a single directory on your hard drive. This is helpful if your archive is larger than your removable disk or if you wish to break up a large archive for easier downloading.
 

Spanning Archives Into Multiple Volumes

Follow these steps to span archives into multiple volumes.
  1. Create or open an archive as you normally would.
  2. Choose Tools > Span Archive from CuteZIP's Menu bar.
  3. Choose the filename and path in the Create Archive Volumes dialog box.
  4. Choose Volume size or allow CuteZIP to automatically detect the disk size. If you are saving the archive to a floppy or other removable disk CuteZIP will automatically detect the maximum size. (If you wish to break up an archive for easier downloading then choose one of the predefined volume sizes or type the volume size you want directly into the Create Volume Archive box.)
  5. If you are creating the spanned archive on a removable disk, choose No change or Erase all. Choose No change if there is existing information on the disk you wish to save.
  6. Choose Create. If you are writing to a removable disk, CuteZIP will prompt you for the additional disk(s) required to span the archive.
 

Extracting Files from Multiple Volume Archives

Whether assembling the archive from volumes spanned across multiple removable disks or building the archive from a single directory, the method is similar. The last volume CuteZIP creates is named with the filename you chose when creating the spanned archive. The other volumes are labeled [filename].[numerator]. For example, if you spanned a 3MB archive named homework.zip across three floppies, the volumes would be labeled as follows:
The volume on Floppy 1 would be named: homework.zip.z01
The volume on Floppy 2 would be named: homework.zip.z02
The volume on Floppy 3 would be named: homework.zip
 

To extract files from the multiple volume archives, you will need to perform the following

  1. Open the last volume of the archive series. The last volume's extension will be .zip or .cab or the appropriate extension for the compression format you used when creating the original archive (see example above).
  2. If opening a multiple volume archive from a single directory, CuteZIP will automatically find the sequential volumes and assemble the archive. If you are opening a spanned archive from multiple removable disks, then open the volume on the last disk to provide a "Table of Contents" of all of the files in the archive.
  3. Extract files as you normally would. If you are extracting files from removable disks, CuteZIP will automatically prompt you for the required disks.