How To Reduce Size, Split, and Join to Transfer Large Files

By Bill Drennon, Director of Technology, CVC

PROBLEM: You have a large file that you want to take home and put on your computer.. but it is too large to transfer on a floppy. What do you do?

SOLUTION:

  1. Compress and archive it with Winzip, reducing its size.
  2. Split it up with Hjsplit.
  3. Transfer it to floppies with Windows Explorer.
  4. Carry it home.
  5. Transfer it to your hard drive with Windows Explorer.
  6. Join the parts back together with Hjsplit.
  7. Extract it with Winzip.

What Software do you need?

  1. Windows Exlporer --- You have it. It comes as part of the Windows operations systems. (Start-> Programs-> Windows Explorer [usually icon is folder with magnifying glass])
  2. Winzip --- You probably have it. If not.you can download it by clicking here. Or if that link does not work, you can find and download the shareware version from http://theworks.tucows.com/window95.html Search:winzip
  3. Hjsplit --- If you are a CVC teacher and you did not get this freeware program from me, you can download it here. Use SAVEAS to save it somewhere on your hard drive where you can find it. I make a directory called C:\downloads where I put my files. This file has been checked to be virus free, but before installing any program on a CVC computer, please check it out with an up-to-date virus program or see me. Thanks.

About the following step by step example

Step I. Compress and archive it with Winzip.

  1. Open Winzip [ Startà Programs -à Winzip à Click Winzip icon. ]
  2. The Winzip window will open.
  3. Click the "New" icon. A "New Archive" dialog box will open. Find the location where you want to store the "zip" file.. In this example. I shall find the fiolder called "How to Clean A Printer"

    4. I decided to call the file name CleanPrinter.zip (Note: I do not have to type ".zip")

  4. Note: The default setting for a split size is 1400. That is the largest size a file can have to fit on a floppy. However, the size can be set to any value.
    Click on Start. "Start" will change its name to "working". Finally a little window will appear saying "Splitting completed".
    I click the OK button. and I have created an empty archive, but I need to add the file to that archive. An "Add" dialog box will open. I find the location of the file(s) that I want to add. In this example, I want to add the file called "How To Clean Printer.rtf". I will select it and add it to my archive by clicking on the Add button.
  5. I have now created an archive called CleanPrinter.zip It contains the file called "How To Clean Printer.rtf".
  6. Only one thing left. Close the archive. To do that, click FILE. Then click "Close Archive". The job is finished. The file can be found at the location C:\How To Teacher Workshops\How To Clean Printer\CleanPrinter.zip You can find it with Windows Explorer (Startà Programs à Windows Explorer.)

Step II. Split up A Large File with HJSplit.

  1. Open HJ Split. You will find it wherver you extracted the file after I sent it to you. If you followed my directions exactly, that location is C:\hjsplit\hjsplit.exe. You can find it with Windows Explorer. Depending on how your folder options are set, the file will be seen as "hjsp lit.exe" or simply "hjsplit" (all lower case letters! Not the icon file called HJSplit with upper case letters!)
  2. Double click hjsplit to open up the program. You will see the menu window pictured above on the left. Single left click on the SPLIT button. When you do, a dialog box will open shown above on the right. Click over the word "unknown" and an "open" window will appear!(See below.)
  3. Find the file you wish to split using the black triangle to the right of the "Look in" box and the larger box below that. When you find the file, highlight it by single left clicking the mouse over its name.. The name will appear in the "File name" box. If you can not find the file, make sure the "Files of type" box is listed as "all files". Then try again. After you have selected the file that you wish to split, single left click the OPEN button.
    Once you single left click over the word "unknown" in the File Splitter dialog box, the "open" dialog box (pictured above) will open in which you will locate the file that you wish to split. In this example, it will be the file called "CleanPrinter.zip":

    4.  

  4. Note: The default setting for a split size is 1400 kb. That is the largest size a file can have to fit on a floppy. However, the size can be set to any value. Once you have accepted or typed the size and have selected the file to split, click on th Start button in the File SPlitter dialog box. "Start" will change its name to "working". Finally a little window will appear saying "Splitting completed".
    The Split Window (shown above) will reappear with the name of the file that you wish to split. Once the file size is set and the file to split has been selected, click on the START button.
  5. Click the OK button and Tah Dah! You are finished.

 

REVIEW OF WHERE WE ARE: You have now compressed the large file that you wish to transfer with WINZIP. You have split the compressed (zip) file whith hjslit into segments for transferring to floppy disks. Now you are ready to copy the files onto floppy. Use Windows Explorer (Startà Programs à Windows Explorer) to find the files. You will find the files that you wish to copy in the same folder as the original file. In this example "How to Clean Printer.rtf" (a large file of over 15 MB) was compressed into a smaller file called "CleanPrinter.zip" ( a smaller file of 4 MB ---but still too large to transfer.) That file in turn was split into four files: CleanPrinter.zip001, CleanPrinter.zip.002, CleanPrinter.zip003, CleanPrinter.zip004. Now you are ready to copy these four files to floppy disks.

Step III. Copy the Files to Floppy disks.

Open Windows Explorer (Start-> Programs -> Windows Explorer) Find the files ending in 001, 002, etc that you just made. Highlight them. Copy. Paste into the A: drive, asuming that is the location of your floppy. Since each file is around 1400kb in size, one file will fit on one floppy. Have your supply of empty floppies handy. I sometimes make duplicate copies of each floppy since floppies are notorious of going bad.

Step IV Copy Files from floppies to Another Computer

Open Windows Explorer (Start-> Programs -> Windows Explorer) Find the floppy drive in the new computer, probably the A: drive. Each floppy will contain one file ending in 001, 002, etc. Copy and paste each one into a folder on the computer's hard drive where you will later be able to locate it.

Step V Join file segments to Reproduce original file

  1. Open Hjsplit at location where you extracted it, probably C:\hjsplit\hjsplit.exe (See instructions in step II.)
  2. When the program opens, single left click the JOIN button.

    3.
  3. The "&Join" dialog box will open (See above). Single left click over "unknown" to produce the "open" window from which you can locate the file segments that you wish to rejoin.

    4. Please Note:

    Only the first of the file segments will show. This is because the file with extension ".001" contains all of the information for joining the segments.

    The "&Join" Window will reappear with the default location of the restored file in the same folder as the segments. You can change where you want the joined-segments file to be restored by clicking in that box and changing the location. For this example, I will not do that. "CleanPrinter.zip" should be restored in the same folder where the segments are found.

  4. Single left click on the file with extension ".001" and it will apprear in the File Name box. Click open. Click the Start button in the File Joiner dialog box to begin the joining process. The "start" on the start button will change to"working".

  5. When the file is restored, a small window saying " Joinin Completed" will appear. Click it and you are finished.

 

REVIEW OF WHERE WE ARE: You have now compressed the large file that you wish to transfer with WINZIP. You have split the compressed (zip) file into with HJSPLIT. You have copied the files to floppies, carried them home, and transferred them onto your hard drive. With HJSPLIT you joined the file segments that were on the floppies into the original zipped file. You must now extract the original file to a location on your hard drive where you can find it. In this example, I will restore "How To Clean Printer.rtf" form the compressed archive file "CleanPrinter.zip". I must do this with WINZIP.

Step VI Restoring the File to its original form

  1. Open Windows Explorer (Start à Programs à Windows Explorer) and locate the file that you joined with hjsplit.

  2. Click on the icon of the archive (zipped file) that you wish to extract. Winzip will automatically open the archive.
  3. Click on the extract button. A dialog box will open from where you can select the new location for the restored file. When the new location is selected and highlighted, single left click on the Extract Button. The location of extraction is shown in the "Extract To" Window. Be sure of the location!!
  4. While the file is extracting, a "red light" will come on while a bar graph of progress is seen in the bottom of the window. When finished, the bar graph will go away and a "green light" will appear.
  5. The file has now been restored to its original form. Well done! You may now click the X in the upper corner to close Winzip. The X simply closes the window. It does not delete it from your hard drive! After closing the file and checking to see if the file has indeed been restored, you may delete.the zip file and all of the files with the extensions of .001, .002, 00x.

  6. You can find the restored file in the location where you extracted it. If you do not see it, try clicking VIEW à REFRESH in windows explorer and look again. A common error with students using winzip is that they thought a file was extracted it in one location but it was actually extracted it in another. If the file is not where you think it is, you will need to search for it. I will show you how that is done in the first workshop.

In this example, I extracted the file "How To Clean Printer.rtf" in the same folder containing "CleanPrinter.zip" and the four segments that were transferred from floppy disks. Note the relative size of the files!

NOTE WHAT WE JUST ACCOMPLISHED.
We took a multimedia file that was 15 mega bytes in length and compressed it into a file of just over 4 megabytes with WINZIP. WOW! We then split this zipped file into four files that would fit on floppies with HJSPLIT. Double Wow! Next we loaded it onto another computer that we first set up with WINZIP and HJSPLIT. We then Joined the segments perfectly together with HJSPLIT. Triple wow! Finally, we restored the file to its original 15 megabyte size with WINZIP. Amazing! No expensive drive was needed. Try it You will like it! When you do it a couple of times, it will be a piece of cake. Of course, not all large files will split into four files with 001 002 003 and 004 endings. Some files may split into only two segments. I had one file called JamesBond.exe that I had to split into seven segments, all the way to 007! Have fun. --- Bill Drennon

PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE

Find a large on your hard drive, but don't mess with any files in the C:\Windows directory, or create document including both text and graphis. Try out this technique.