How to unpack a five Rar file archive

[jojothehobo]

Wow, you guys need some serious help in user-friendly instructions. The program looks great, and I've tried to use it a few times over the past few years, but each time I end up screaming at my computer and removing the program.
The worst problem is deprecating the "new file types". Inevitably once I pass an archive to Power Archiver it is like shredding the file. Usually file archiver finds a problem, like the worst lab instructor I ever had in college. Then there is no way to fix the problem. When I click on repair archive one of two things happen: the archive gets repaired and then doesn't work or the archive can't be repaired and then doesn't work. Moreover when I try to go back to WinRar to open the archive I'm told that it belongs to Power Archiver now and it is gone forever.
When I look for ways to go back to ordinary Winzip or Win Rar I'm told that the file formats have been changed and thats' that. Your Forum has some posts about going back to the old winzip or win rar but only under special circumstances, which I think were related to the El Nino climate cycle off the coast of Ecuador. I couldn't find the right combination of buttons and the other reader couldn't either.

Now that I"ve gotten some of that off my chest I'll make a suggestion and ask something specific.

My suggestion is to have a visual quickstart guide taking people through the basic tasks like unpacking a zip or rar archive and storing the program, music or what ever some place convenient. Include a few things that could go wrong. Do this for almost all the operating modes of the program. During the course of my thirty years as a Professor of Engineering I've seen that people prefer to build up to the general from the specific and that early on hands on examples are invaluable. Going in the other direction, from general to specific is guaranteed not to work.

In my case I have, or had five zip archives I wanted to open and extract a large executable. Power Archiver got ahold of it and changed the file extensions to file archiver, an extension that no other compression archiver can even see. All this would be fine if Power Archiver were a friend. Instead it tells me my CRC file is off. I don't recall having a CRC file for this archive. The program then asks if I just want to skip it, and I click yes. But Power archiver does nothing, sort of like a street tough daring you to do something and letting you know you have the problem and not Power ARchiver.

So I try to deprecate to an earlier type of zip but find nothing. I create an SFX archive, which the program lets me do, but when I try to run it an ominous error message comes up saying, if I recall "didn't we just tell you your CRC is bad, and now your back. Well I didn't want the program to lose it's patience, so I somehow got the SFX archive to extract the five component parts.

But the parts are now completely inert and useless in that other unpack archives like Win Rar can't see it and PA refuses to any more with the mess it created. It was my problem now.
Any suggestions?

[spwolf]

I think the biggest problem here is that you do have to start from start ;-). I dont know how can PowerArchiver explain what are file associations in Windows and how they work for instance - it is general knowledge, or it should be. Just like in your engineering class, I am sure you sometimes had students who did not have enough prerequisite knowledge to understand your lectures...

So let me try to explain few things:
- CRC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclic_redundancy_check

CRC is short hash of every file in every archive, that is done automatically during creating of the archive and serves to identify if files are still valid in the archive, after extraction. Common issue that happens is corruption of archive during download/upload process or CD/DVD media that goes bad and corrupts files on it. In that case, PowerArchiver will report an CRC error (files that are being extracted are not the same as files that were originally compressed). Of course, this is the most common cause, it could be something else as well.

File associations in Windows - when you say PA takes over file associations, it is just that it sets itself (based on your confirmation) as default double-click option. So if PA or WinRar or WinZip are set as default programs to open certain extension, it does not mean that other programs can not open it. It just means that they open it by default. To open archive with other program, you can for instance, right click on it in Windows Explorer and select one of the shell extensions to use... or right click on archive and select Open With... menu. Or you can open program such as WinRar, and then use its Open button/menu to locate archive and open it.

In PowerArchiver, you can disable any specific (or all) file associations by going to PA> Options> Config> File Formats.

Was this at least a bit helpful? Thank you!

[Micke]

Hi!

Originally Posted by jojothehobo

My suggestion is to have a visual quickstart guide taking people through the basic tasks like unpacking a zip or rar archive and storing the program, music or what ever some place convenient.

Have you checked the Help section in PA? In the section "Getting Started -- Brief Tutorial" there's basic instructions of how to Create, Add, Remove, View and Extract.

Originally Posted by jojothehobo

Instead it tells me my CRC file is off. I don't recall having a CRC file for this archive. The program then asks if I just want to skip it, and I click yes. But Power archiver does nothing, sort of like a street tough daring you to do something and letting you know you have the problem and not Power ARchiver.

It sounds like your problem is that you have a corrupt Archive that can't be repaired. You can't blame PA for this, it would be the same if you had a corrupt image that the image program couldn't open, then the problem is not the program itself but bad corrupt data that's used to open with the associated program.

Kind Regards
Micke

[jojothehobo]

Thanks for both replies. I particularly appreciated the Wiki on CRC. I was always curious how they were worked out and what was behind them.
I think my CRC error is what messed up the file conversion. What I will do is try other archives and work with PA to get the hang of it. It truly is the most fully featured and flexible file archiver around.

all the best, Joel

[james77grant]

Was struggling with something and you post inadvertantly helped. Yeah, can be a little tricky to get your head around at first.

Thanks again,
James