Small auto-growing HDD image maker (Windows)

[mikeazorin]

The best and basically only why to get file compression working is to compress an empty folder, and then extract an image to it. This works great with PearPC. Compressing an already extracted image kills explorer for god knows why.

[thewer]

when you say "extract" an image to it, what do you mean? The NTFS compression doesn't have an extract option. Or are you talking about winXP's "zip folders" rather than NTFS's compression?

thewer ;)

[mikeazorin]

1. Make a folder and compress it.
2. Download a compressed image.
3. Extract it to the compressed folder using WinRAR or something.

[thewer]

Ahhh.... Got ya... My problem is that I have easily enough room for 1 image, but I want 3 compressed ones and I didn't want to have to re-install the os every time... So i made 1, compressed it (or I could have done what you suggested), but now I want to duplicate it, and that doesn't seem to work...

thewer ;)

[prasys]

[quote="GPSnoopy":3f55c975d4]
I feel a bit cheated here; I sent this program to PearPC a couple of weeks ago, but the links isn't on the main download page anymore, dunno why.
Anyway, it's basicallly the same as posted here, with one or two extras.

www.pearpc.net/files/makedisk_pearpc.zip
[/quote:3f55c975d4]

Mind sending ti to me , pradeesh @ gmail dot com , and then I can upload (or link to my site) and then add it to the Links/Downloads section...

[Guest]

this is retarded how do you get it to work

[Guest]

[quote="thewer":b555864e58]
With my pearpc on winxp I just made a HD image of the size I wanted than used the compression that comes with NTFS to compress the drive. Had the same effect... Havent tryed this but does it use all the space at first? Id love to make a 10G image but I only have 4G free! That is one problem using the NTFS compression, you need to free space, THEN you compress it...

thewer
[/quote:b555864e58]

With sparse files, you don't need all the space when creating the file, but it seems you should have it when *using* the file. I tried installing Tiger on a 15GB sparse image (created with Sebastians tool) for the last couple of days, with about 5GB actually free on the drive. That resulted in the strangest errors: One time, the Installer would claim it completed sucessfully, but the disk image was corrupt. Another time, it would claim that "some error" occured, and sometimes it would simply kernel panic in the middle of the install. Turns out the drive goes to 0 bytes free in the instant the Installer starts writing to the disk image. So it seems that Windows tries to allocate all of the 15GB somewhere on the disk, which, of course, failed. This same problem seems to exist with compressed files, but to a lesser extent. Moral: Make sure you have enough free space for your disk image to "explode"...

Steffen

[frank]

I just uploaded a new sparse disk implementation to the patch list here:

[url:ae22999465]http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1232455&group_id=108675&atid=651197[/url:ae22999465]

It uses a new format for creating sparse disk images and it doesn't rely on sparse disk image support in the host OS.

Frank.

[extension]

HEy .. if u have mac installed on a 6gb image how can u get more space without reinstalling it?

Can`t u use 2 6gb images or something?

[bot47]

[quote:333a9a2c4d]
Hey .. if [b:333a9a2c4d]you[/b:333a9a2c4d] have mac installed on a 6gb image how can [b:333a9a2c4d]you[/b:333a9a2c4d] get more space without reinstalling it?

Can't [b:333a9a2c4d]you[/b:333a9a2c4d] use two 6 GB images or something?
[/quote:333a9a2c4d]Of course you can.