Grabit and Incomplete parts

[madscientist]

Hi all.

I was just downloading a fairly large file. I was using my ISP news server to do it, however once it had finished and i fired up the par2 file there were loads of incomplete parts. So i checked the recovery par files and they didn't solved the problem either.

So i narrowed it down a little and decided to use a different news server to download of the parts and once that had comepleted I again checked the par2 file and it was green and complete... now.. the problem with that was i had to start the part01 file download all over again... so my question is whether there is a way that i can use the other news server to finish off the files that are almost complete?? when i try to load them again they just start a fresh and rename the files and add a .1 to it... for example xxx-xxx.002.rar becomes xxx-xxx002.1.rar..
Is there a way to do this with grabit or any other newsreader?

I hope this all makes sense?

thanks

[Red Dwarf]

I know what you mean and I think you'd better forget about it. I don't think it is possible.

[madscientist]

ok thanks.

Just wanted to know.. because it's a shame to have almost complete files with missing blocks due to what i can only see as poor retention. and i have to go all over again.

[Blanche]

On the contrary, it is possible. Files on usenet are divided in parts or segments and there are newsreaders that allow you to inspect files to determine missing parts and to download only these parts from a server where the files are complete. However it is a very tedious job to first indentify missing parts and then download these. It's much faster to download the complete file all over again.

This practice was used frequently when download speeds were much lower and for example phone lines were used for internet connection. With the broadband connections nowadays the extra time you spend identifying and downloading these parts isn't comparable by downloading the file completely. So however it's possible, it's not advisable.

[Red Dwarf]

I know, but I don't know if it can be done with GrabIt, and I don't know if one could finish it with another newsreader. I knew it was a tedious process. With Newsleecher for example you would have to be subscribed to the group you're downloading from which might involve downloading a bunch of headers.

[jaapf]

Unfortunately Grabit is a single-server downloader. Therefore it can't combine parts from multiple servers.

However, there are a lot of other newsreaders that can. SabNZB+ is one (free) example. Newsleecher, Usenet Explorer, Newsbin Pro, and many others are commercial variants that will allow you to use multiple servers at a time.