unable to burn a 2.2 GB file on to a DVD RW

adityavpratap · 07-16-2007, 09:52 AM

Hi,
I am having this strange problem.
I have about 2 GB of family photographs that I want to backup on to DVD,re-writable media. So I used GnomeBaker on my Slackware 11.0 laptop to burn them. But to my utter dismay, I found that some of the files (photographs) on the newly-burnt dvd, were corrupted. They could not be displayed using any of the imaging software like eog or gimp. They were read as zero width files. Any idea what could be the reason?

Then I archived these files using tar as follows -

Quote:

$ tar zcvf filename.tar.gz photo_directory/

Then I started GnomeBaker and wanted to add the tar ball to a new DVD session by dragging it down to the project area. But it would not stay there. So I restarted GnomeBaker from a terminal to capture any output. Here is the output -

Quote:

** (gnomebaker:3255): WARNING **: dataproject_add_to_compilation - failed to stat file [/home/aditya/..../filename.tar.gz] with ret code [-1] error no [Value too large for defined data type]

It appears to me that GnomeBaker is unable to handle such large files properly. Any suggestions as to how I can take backup of this file on DVD RW?

the-yikes · 07-16-2007, 10:42 AM

Gzip has issues with files larger hen 4 gigs you can download a version with large file support from http://www.gzip.org iv'e had similar problems in the past and this worked for me.

Another possibility is that you working on folders with spaces in the names, a quick workaround is to copy you target folder to a directory in root called "datahere" and remove any spaces in folder names.

The Yikes

pwc101 · 07-16-2007, 11:34 AM

If I'm correct, a DVD generally cannot have a single file that is larger than 2GB on it. You can put more than 2GB's worth of data on, but not as a single file. This wiki link has more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_9660 The section called "The 2 GiB (or 4.2GB depending on implementation) file size limit" is of relevance here:

Quote:

Originally Posted by wikipedia.org

The 2 GiB (or 4.2GB depending on implementation) file size limit

Normally, a file on a ISO formatted disc cannot be larger than 2^31-1 in size, as the file's size is stored in a signed 32 bit value, for which 2^31-1 is the maximum.

It is, however, possible to circumvent this limitation by using the multi-extent (fragmentation) feature of ISO 9660 Level 3. With this, files larger than 2GB can be split up into multiple extents (sequential series of sectors), each not exceeding the 2GB limit.

If you can change the settings of your CD burning software to Level 3 ISO, it should be able to handle individual files larger than 2GB.

Or, just make 2 tarballs which are less than 2GB each.

Hope this helps.

edit: mksisofs, which is probably what most burning software uses to write DVDs/CDs, is capable of writing Level 3 ISOs, so it seems it should be possible.