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How To Extract Or Join Multiple Archives
Most of the archived files that you can download from the internet have the following filenames: name.part01.rar, name.part02.rar, name.part03.rar or name.r00, name.r01, name.r02 etc. You can extract those files with WinRAR or the free program 7-Zip. But sometimes you will see files with the following filenames: name.001, name.002, name.003 etc, which we will call 001 files. In this tutorial you will learn how to extract or join these types of files.
In this tutorial we will try to join test.mp3. As you can see in the image below this file is split into eight pieces that we have to join before we can listen to the test.mp3 file.
We can do this with three different programs: WinRAR, 7-Zip and HJSplit. It is up to you to choose which program you would like to use for this task: WinRAR, 7-Zip or HJSplit. Because many people have WinRAR installed on their PC, I will explain that program first. WinRAR isn't the best fit for this task though, so if you currently do not use WinRAR, just skip the next part and use 7-Zip. Only try HJSplit if both WinRAR and 7-Zip fail!
Extracting with WinRaR
After downloading all the files of a posting, it is always important to check if all the files are complete and valid (not corrupted in the download process). This can be done with QuickPar if there is a PAR2 file posted with the files.After that is done, so if you know the files are valid, we can extract them. Open the first file of the RAR archive, often the '.part1.rar' file.
Pay attention: RAR files made with older versions than WinRAR 3.x have the extensions '.rar', '.r01', '.r02' etc. In that case you open the '.rar' file.
After opening, WinRAR starts and shows us the content of the RAR files. Now we select all files (in this case only one), and click on the 'Extract To' button.
A faster method to extract files
Extracting can be done even more easily than described above. In the Windows Explorer, right click on the first file (.part1.rar) and choose for WinRAR > Extract here. The files will be extracted in the same directory.
Joining with WinRAR
Open the first file of the archive (name.001) with WinRAR by double clicking on it in the Windows Explorer. Normally a window will appear asking you which program should be used to open the 001 file (this is because Windows might not know which programs are capable of opening 001 files). So select WinRAR in that window. If WinRAR isn't listed, press the 'Browse' button and navigate to the WinRAR folder on your computer (probably C:\Program Files\WinRAR) and select WinRAR. Finally press the 'OK' button.
Now there are two possibilities:
1) WinRAR is able to open the file successfully. Now you can extract the archive in the same way you would extract normal RAR archives.
2) WinRAR is unable to open the archive and you get the following error message:
In tha case WinRAR is unable to extract or join the files, so we have to try the programs 7-Zip or HJSplit. Both programs are free and will be explained below.
Extracting with 7-Zip
Most of the archive files downloaded from the internet are compressed archives that have been split into multiple pieces with the following file name structure: name.part01.rar, name.part02.rar, name.part03.rar and so forth. These are RAR files that you can extract with WinRAR but also with the freeware program 7-Zip. That is what we will do in this tutorial. We will not discuss creating archives with 7-Zip in this tutoria: 7-Zip is not able to create these RAR files, but has its own format: .7z. Obviously, when this format becomes more popular this tutorial will be expanded.Download 7-Zip
Configuration
Before we start let's change two settings that will make working with 7-Zip easier. In the main screen of 7-Zip click on 'Options...' in the menu 'Tools':
The Options window appears and we are at the tab 'System'. Make sure that at least 'rar' is checked. By doing this we will be able to open RAR files directly from the Windows Explorer.
Now go to the tab 'Plugins', select '7-Zip' and click on the 'Options...' button:
Make sure that the item 'Integrate 7-Zip to shell context menu' is checked. I recommend that you check 'Cascaded context menu' as well. Check or uncheck the other items according to your own preferences. I set them as follows:
Finally press 'OK' to save the changes made to the configuration.
Extracting
In the Windows Explorer right click on the first file (name.part01.rar) of the archive that you want to unpack. So do not select all files of the archive, only the first file. WinRAR will automatically use all other files of that archive for extraction. Notice that only those items are available in the context menu that you checked while configuring.
The meaning of these items:
Open archive Opens this archive with 7-Zip. Double clicking on name.part01.rar in the Windows Explorer has the same result.
Extract files 7-Zip will ask you in which folder you want the extracted files to be saved.
Extract Here 7-Zip will save the contents of the archive directly to the same folder as the RAR files.
Test archive Checks whether the archive has not been damaged.
Add to archive Adds files to an existing archive.[/code]
So the easiest and quickest way to extract the files is to choose 'Extract Here'. Now we will demonstrate how 'Open archive' works: 7-Zip will start and you will see the contents of the archive:
Select the files that you want to extract and click on the button 'Extract'. A new window appears where you can enter in which folder the files have to be saved. You can also click on the button with the three dots [...] to easily browse to a folder. Finally click on the 'OK' button.
7-Zip will now extract the files. If you prefer you can hide the progress window (click on the button 'Background'), temporarily pause the operation, or cancel it. If you would cancel the operation, the extracted files will be removed.
When 7-Zip is finished the window will be closed. Then the archive has been successfully unpacked!
Joining with 7-Zip
The free program 7-Zip is better than WinRAR in joining 001 files.Download 7-Zip
After installing 7-Zip, right click on the first file (name.001) in the Windows Explorer and choose 'Extract here' in the 7-Zip submenu of the context menu. 7-Zip will extract the archive and place the extract files into the same directory as where the source files are located. You could also choose 'Open archive' to view the archive in 7-Zip or extract the file to another directory by choosing 'Extract files'. Easy!
If both WinRAR and 7-Zip failed, you can try HJSplit.
Joining with HJSplit
Only if both WinRAR and 7-zip were unsuccessful, try HJSplit!Download HJSplit
You do not have to install HJSplit. Just extract the 'hjsplit.zip' and double click on HJSplit.exe to start HJSplit. The main window of HJSplit appears. Since we want to join the files, click on 'Join':
Click on 'Input file' in the new window:
In the new window select the first file of the files that we would like to join, so test.mp3.001 in this case, and click on 'Open' after that.
Click on 'Start':
Now HJSplit will join the file. When it is finished you will see this message:
The files have been successfully joined!
