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I have a 2GB RAR file that contains a 9GB video file. I'm using a FAT32 file system. Now I want to unzip that file but after 4GB I get an error due to the FAT32 file size limit.

Now I want to know that how I can extract that video? I know that one way is to convert my partition to NTFS but I don't want to follow that way.

I've also tried 7-zip but that again gives error after 4GB.

One other way is to split that file but I don't know how I can split a video file that is zipped.

So any idea please? How can I get rid of this problem.

Update:

For all those who think that it is not AVI File, or may be I'm misunderstanding it, or may be I'm not mentioning correct size or if they think that it is not possible to compress that much, I'm attaching image of that file. I hope it answers all those questions.

enter image description here

Oliver Salzburg
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Kashif
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    I have to ask - why not switch to NTFS? FAT32 is an ancient and outdated file system. – Simon Sheehan Sep 10 '12 at 11:14
  • my HD is 200 gb out of which 160+ is filled. to convert into NTFS I'll have to empty my drive/partition as it will format my whole drive/partition. so I'm not looking to do that. correct me if i am worng. – Kashif Sep 10 '12 at 11:19
  • Basically yes. However, you will see a performance boost, and it will solve this Problem. Because there really isn't any other way to fix it – Simon Sheehan Sep 10 '12 at 11:20
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    You can convert from Fat32 to NTFS in place but if anything goes wrong then too bad => restore from backup. So you would need a spare 160gb to back up to. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/11106-convert-fat-fat32-volume-ntfs.html – ta.speot.is Sep 10 '12 at 11:33
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    @Kashif: I am curious as to what video format you are using that is so inefficient that RAR compression can eliminate over 75% of the data. – James P Sep 10 '12 at 11:41
  • @James. AVI :(. actually it was a training session by my instructor and the guy used webinaria to capture screen. this is only 10 minuets video. – Kashif Sep 10 '12 at 11:48
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    The easiest, cheapest and safest solution may be a 16 GB USB stick. – MSalters Sep 10 '12 at 12:40
  • @Kashif - The video is only 10 minutes long but is 9GB. What you can't be done on current hdd. Invest in 16GB flash drive. Although it still does not explain how you were able to compress a 9GB video into only 2GB even using the best compression it should only be 40-50% compression. – Ramhound Sep 10 '12 at 14:46
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    10 min. Screencast? Why not reencode while unzipping? Like: `unrar.exe p -inul bigCast.rar | ffmpeg -i - -acodec libvorbis -ab 128k -ac 2 -vcodec libx264 -preset slow -crf 22 -threads 0 our-final-product.mkv` – Rekin Sep 10 '12 at 15:38
  • Use Easeus Partition Master or MiniTool Partition Wizard. They can convert FAT32 to NTFS without formatting for free. – Elmo Sep 10 '12 at 15:40
  • I dont have 16 GB USB stick. right now I've only 8GB USB available with me. and that will not work in this scenario. – Kashif Sep 10 '12 at 16:14
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    If you had enough memory, you could create a RAM Drive with another filesystem, and unzip it there. – Mister Smith Sep 10 '12 at 16:18
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    ... 9 GB for 10 minutes? Isn't that like, way beyond even 1080p, given that it _is_ compressed into an AVI file? I think your instructor may need to fix his settings... – Izkata Sep 10 '12 at 16:25
  • I don't understand why you are trying to figure out how to bypass the FS limitation without changing the file system... You know it won't do more than 4GB per file, but you still want a 9GB file? – Canadian Luke Sep 10 '12 at 16:26
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    @Rekin That's actually a workable solution that can't cause the drive to break, and wouldn't require going to the store to buy something (like a USB stick), assuming the resulting size _is_ small enough. Why not post it as an answer? – Izkata Sep 10 '12 at 16:28
  • Are you sure that the uncompressed file is actually 9gb in size? Videos in .avi are usually already compressed and a further compression algorithm is non likely to provide much benefit. – SigueSigueBen Sep 10 '12 at 19:39
  • @SigueSigueBen: yes it it 9 gb file and when i tried to transfer it via network, i got file limit error. then i ziped it on source computer and it became 2gb rar file. Then i moved it on my system but again I again i got same error. – Kashif Sep 10 '12 at 20:58
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    @Izkata in raw format at 1080p/32bit/60fps the video could be as much as ~300GB. There are some fairly wretched video compression formats out there that generate very bloated files that would compress reasonably well. AFAIK motion-jpeg doesn't do any compression between frames which results in extremely large file sizes and often lots of duplication for a zip tool to squish. – Dan Is Fiddling By Firelight Sep 10 '12 at 21:23
  • @DanNeely No but Motion JPEG barely compresses with RAR (less than 1%). RAR can't add inter-frame compression to video and so should achieve nothing on JPEG or MJPEG files. I find it suspicious that ANY video format would compress by that much. I suspect something is extremely wrong with the encoding or the poster is wrong about the file format. Perhaps it's not a "video" at all but some kind of screen-cast using uncompressed image files (bitmap or GIF screenshots or something). – NickG Sep 11 '12 at 09:10
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    Just upgrade your disk to NTFS, problems are very uncommon. If you are worried about losing what is on there because you have no backups then think about what if your hard drive fails tommorrow? Make a backup anyway! – JamesRyan Sep 11 '12 at 10:22
  • For those dubious about the idea of an AVI file being so space-inefficient, remember that AVI is a *container* format, not a *video encoding*. – Adam Robinson Sep 11 '12 at 12:14
  • @NickG Agreed for general video content; but a screencast is likely to have many places where an identical frame is shown multiple times in succession. That degree of repetition should result in some readily compressible sections in the file. – Dan Is Fiddling By Firelight Sep 11 '12 at 12:59
  • *If you had enough memory, you could create a RAM Drive with another filesystem, and unzip it there.*   @MisterSmith, who (even today) has enough RAM to create a **9GB RAM drive**? – Synetech Sep 11 '12 at 16:12
  • @DanNeely Yes, possibly true if it's MJPEG, but not true for any other format of video or screencast. But you might be right there. – NickG Sep 11 '12 at 17:05
  • @JamesRyan How? I don't know of any way to do that without starting again from a newly formatted drive. You can't convert FAT > NTFS AFAIK. – NickG Sep 11 '12 at 17:06
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    @Synetech: I do. 16GB of RAM isn't that expensive anymore. – liori Sep 11 '12 at 17:59
  • @liori, good for you. It may not be expensive for you, but not everybody is you. Besides, you can’t just buy a bunch of RAM and cram it in; many people would need to upgrade their motherboard to support that, which often means upgrading the CPU and even video-card. That adds up *very fast*. – Synetech Sep 11 '12 at 18:14
  • @Synetech: just wanted to say that you're dismissing this option too quickly, and that it is possible to have that big RAM disk even today. – liori Sep 11 '12 at 18:16
  • @liori, sure, no worries, but considering that the OP was using FAT32 and mentioned being unable to get a 16GB flash-drive, I suspect that it’s not really an option here. – Synetech Sep 11 '12 at 18:29
  • You can do an in place conversion from FAT32 to NTFS using the convert command http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Convert-a-hard-disk-or-partition-to-NTFS-format In fact this was already added as an answer below! – JamesRyan Sep 11 '12 at 18:59
  • @Synetech my newest machine has 16 GiB RAM. It was well under $1k (total, for the machine, including the RAM) – derobert Sep 12 '12 at 19:29
  • @derobert, it’s nice that you have that kind of money to spare on a new computer. I hope you don’t take it for granted because many people can’t afford food or heat. – Synetech Sep 12 '12 at 20:34
  • Where did you get that converting FAT32 to NTFS will format your drive? – phuclv Nov 25 '16 at 09:59

9 Answers9

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There is no way you can go over the 4GB limit of the FAT32 Filesystem, because FAT32 imposes this limitation by design. This file system has a natural limitation for the maximum file size it can handle, which is 4GB.

And yes, I haven't found any tool that splits the video file while unzipping it.


The solution to this if you do NOT want to convert to NTFS is:

  • Get an external drive with NTFS filesystem on it.

  • Extract your Video file there.

  • Then use a video splitting software to split it in multiple parts, and then copy those to your FAT32 filesystem.

aliasgar
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You can try to play the RAR (sic!) file with VLC media player. It does have internal support for RAR. This would only work if your RAR is not encrypted. I do not know the internals of VLC's implementation but I think VLC does not create temporary files, then this might work.
EDIT2: will not work with compressed archives, but should work with multi-volume RARs.

EDIT:
But if you want access the real file and playing it is not enough: Mount the RAR file with WinMount http://www.winmount.com as a virtual drive.
EDIT2: Does not work, stops after about 4GB (tested by asker)

EDIT3:
OK I just remebered that Microsoft Virtual PC can do multi-volume VHDs on FAT32. Related: http://www.k2underground.com/blogs/blacktop/archive/2009/06/26/microsoft-virtual-pc-and-fat32-disks.aspx
Just keep in mind that you cannot use these VHDs without MS Virtual PC. To use or open them with other software they have to be joined first. Its a little overkill just to open a file but you might try it. I have however not tested this on my new Windows 7 PC only on my older PC with WinXP.

clst
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    If this works, this is by far the best answer for the given problem. – Chad Harrison Sep 10 '12 at 17:18
  • A few other things to try: http://www.v12pwr.com/RARFileSource/ and http://www.shapeshifter.se/code/vlc-unrar/ . I've had success with native VLC unrar, vlc-unrar and rar file source. rar file source is by far the highest successrate, in my experience. – user606723 Sep 10 '12 at 17:29
  • Actually, most of these options will not work if the rar archive is compressed, afaik. – user606723 Sep 10 '12 at 17:32
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    Winmount has same problem... it gives error when done with half of file( around 4 gb) – Kashif Sep 10 '12 at 21:19
  • Isaac: but VLC can open the (2GB) RAR file? – Konerak Sep 11 '12 at 09:50
  • That's a pity. According to the WinMount homepage they claim not to create temporary files (which cannot work due to the FS limitations) but apparently this is not true. I am sorry that it didn't work. I was not able to try because I do not have a FAT32 volume. @Isaac: VLC has an access filter for RAR files. I checked and it can only open UNCOMPRESSED RAR files. But it does have support for multi-volume RARs. So you could try that. – clst Sep 11 '12 at 11:51
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You can boot a linux live distribution and mount your file system. Then run

7z -so e file.rar | split -b 3500M

That way you end up with the split file video on your FAT partition. I have no clue if any player is able to actually display the file.

Marco
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  • hmm, you might have better luck converting it into 3 movie files with a suitable tool maybe? – Journeyman Geek Sep 10 '12 at 12:16
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    True. Instead of `split` you could pipe it through `ffmpeg`. But that's not within the scope of this question. This answer should show an alternative way which does not involve resorting to NTFS. The OP is responsible for doing something useful with the split files. – Marco Sep 10 '12 at 12:21
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    I doubt there is any reason you can't just do this on Windows. http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/coreutils.htm – user606723 Sep 10 '12 at 19:46
  • I think installing split on windows is probably going to be the simplest option, as far as just splitting the file goes. Some of the better video players (VLC) might be able to handle the split video files. – nynexman4464 Sep 10 '12 at 20:05
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10 min. Screencast? It's probably badly encoded (or maybe even not at all).

Why not reencode while unzipping? It won't require external drive. For 10 min. you could possibly end up with a file of around 100mb in size.

Assuming Windows Command Line you could try:

unrar.exe p -inul bigCast.rar |   ^
 ffmpeg -i -                      ^
 -acodec libvorbis -ab 128k -ac 2 ^
 -vcodec libx264                  ^
 -preset slow -crf 22             ^
 -threads 0 smallCast.mkv

The unrar p instructs rar to print the content to STDOUT. Than it's read back by FFmpeg -i -. The ^ characters are line break escape characters from Windows .bat file format.

You can get FFmpeg from Zeranoe FFmpeg Builds site. For simplicity pick the static one.

Rekin
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  • it didn't work properly. i just got one clip of 1:08 minute. and when i run it, its just a few seconds clip. – Kashif Sep 11 '12 at 09:54
  • clever idea and I'm sure that it could be worked out by using correct ffmpeg params (if you have time to discover them) – Sedat Kapanoglu Sep 11 '12 at 11:11
  • There's a flaw possibly - the file to extracted should be specified somewhere. I'll look into it yet – Rekin Sep 11 '12 at 11:22
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FAT32 does not support files larger than 4 GB, so you can't create files larger than that on any FAT32 filesystem. Which operating system do you use? On Windows you can convert FAT32 to NTFS on the fly by using convert.exe (replace D: with your actual drive letter):

convert D: /fs:ntfs

Edit: Quoting from the aforementioned MSKB article about convert.exe:

Note Although the chance of corruption or data loss during the conversion is minimal, we recommend that you perform a backup of the data on the volume that you want to convert before you start the conversion.

Ansgar Wiechers
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    Remember to always make a backup before you do this kind of stuff. – Baarn Sep 10 '12 at 11:42
  • I'm using Win7. but if i use convert then it will format my whole partition. and this is not what i want. – Kashif Sep 10 '12 at 11:46
  • With converting filesystems it's all or nothing, I'm afraid. Either you do convert your volume, or you have to use an external disk with an appropriate filesystem. – Ansgar Wiechers Sep 10 '12 at 12:12
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    Using the convert tool does not erase its contents. But it's a matter of good practice to keep a backup anyway. – PhonicUK Sep 10 '12 at 12:54
  • You can use 3rd party tools to resize a partition without reformatting and then use the newly freed space to create an NTFS partition beside your (shrunken) FAT32 one. I've used a GPartEd live CD for this before; but I don't recall if it can move your files to the front of the partition of if you'll need to use something else to do that first. – Dan Is Fiddling By Firelight Sep 10 '12 at 12:57
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    @Kashif why would you want to use FAT32 with win7? NTFS is a far better file system both in support for large files as well as security and stability (less issues with data corruption). – Alan Barber Sep 10 '12 at 18:09
  • @Kashif: Convert does NOT format your partition! Your data will be kept and transferred into the new format. I have already done this several times. – Felix Dombek Sep 10 '12 at 19:36
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    I'm astonished Windows 7 even lets you have a FAT32 system partition. – Alan B Sep 11 '12 at 08:49
  • the name "convert" says it all, it does **NOT** format the partition. Just convert and **preserve all data** on it @Alan B: windows 7 only requires NTFS for the windows partition – phuclv Aug 18 '13 at 14:11
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You could use Partition Magic, which allows you to repartition drives without destroying data, so you create a 12gb ntfs partition, unzip your file then recode it with ffmpeg or another recoding tool back to your fat32 partition then return the 12gb working partition to the fat32 drive... long winded, but should work

David McGowan
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4

It's completely impossible to create a file larger than 4GB in a FAT32 volume. The only way to solve your problem is

  1. convert your partition format to exFAT or NTFS or some other format which support large file
  2. treat your rar file as a stream -- this maybe possible in theory but I don't know any implementation of this.
Lingfeng Xiong
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  • I wonder why exFAT isn't among more answers. The question really is if Microsoft has support to do an inplace upgrade of from FAT32 to exFAT. – Natalie Adams Sep 12 '12 at 04:01
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    exFAT is property and less support. Of course M$ recommend us to upgrade to exFAT for removable storage such as Flash Drive and SD card to avoid the loss caused by NTFS's journal feature, but it's not only a new version of FAT32 -- it's nearly a whole new file system. During the years FAT32 widely used, almost every devices and programmes are support it. However, exFAT is only known to be support in Windows XP SP1 later, and in UNIX-like system, only Mac OS X and a Fuse implementation are known to be supported it. – Lingfeng Xiong Sep 12 '12 at 06:18
  • FWIW, here's where to download [Microsoft's exFAT file system driver update package](http://support.microsoft.com/kb/955704) for 32- and 64-bit versions of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. It supports theoretical maximum volume and files sizes of up to 64 ZB (that's right, ZettaBytes, which are 1 billion TeraBytes each). – martineau Sep 16 '12 at 17:22
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The best nd only answer is no. you cannot, reason -->the creator of FAT32 filesystem have implemented that limitation on the maximum size of file it can handle(4GB).

Though many of users have answered it before, the only thing i can add is that means other than converting your drive to NTFS or copying that file to a pen drive formatted in NTFS system nd then extracting, cannot work, because it is the OS that keeps the data in temporary files/locations/folders for temporary purpose, which cannot again cross the 4GB limit.

Easiest way is to buy a pen drive and uncompress your data on it.

Resource :- Extensive experience with Windows OS's

Sathyajith Bhat
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Vivek
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You can convert your FAT32 to NTFS without loosing your data by the following methods for your 4gb transfer

On Windows,

  • click Start --> Run
  • type in cmd
  • then type convert c: /fs:ntfs (depending on your drive name, in my case C:)

For this to run you need to unmount the disk which you want to convert. For this just reboot the computer and do nothing else other than try to convert the file system. If you still get that error, reboot into safe mode and do it again. The conversion doesn't actually happen right then. It will reboot the computer and then run the conversion process before the OS proper loads.

Vimal Venugopalan
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