Errr Unusual Problem

[fofusion]

Hey guys.

I was downloading various distros so I could try them out.

I decided I'd go download debian. I used the mirror ftp://ftp.monash.edu.au/pub/linux/di.../i386/iso-dvd/

I think this is where I downloaded the first disc I really cant remember - it was a few weeks ago. I then realised there was a second image to be downloaded.

I headed over to the above mirror to download the second image. It started and it was going great - 460kb/s roughly and i went away came back and I got this:

[img]http://fofusion.co.uk/uploads/whatthe****.JPG[/img]

My first thought was what the ****. Secondly I noticed the file size of the image which was wrong. According to the download window the total size for the second image was 130.7mb - according to the mirror its like 4gb.

I thought okay i'll try again so I downloaded it with internet explorer this time. It downloaded and completed but the file size is 127mb

When I load up the image with MagicISO I get this:

[img]http://fofusion.co.uk/uploads/whatthe****2.JPG[/img]

look at the circled bit.

also if i get the properties i get:

[img]http://fofusion.co.uk/uploads/whatthe****3.JPG[/img]

Any help would be appreciated

Thanks
Barry

[darklordsatan]

First of all I have to say, lucky you to have broadband. Im under a crappy 56k dial-up so downloading a 4 Gb ISO is way out of my limits.

Now, for the second image, I didnt catch the "circled bit" you're talking about. However, if you look at the ftp link you just posted, youll see the actual image sizes are

debian-31r0a-i386-binary-1.iso  4576862 KB
debian-31r0a-i386-binary-2.iso  4325050 KB

Which is roughly 4.12 Gb for the second image. If your download is 127 Mb, then you have a corrupted iso.
Likely, opening the iso with programs such as winrar or magic iso will show you its ~ 4Gb because they are probably reading the iso header, and not the real size, so try to uncompress them into your hardisk and probably you'll have "corrupted file" errors.

Just download the file again.

2 advices:

• Use a download manager such as flashget or Wellget (a freeware almost identical to flashget). Never use your browser download manager. I know you have broadband, and probably these downloads take like 20 mins or so, but resist that urge. Browser download managers suck big time, specially since they dont have the ability to resume downloads when they're broken (like yours). The only time when I use a browser DM is when I need to know the direct link for a file, and its encoded with php ids, then I use opera to check out the link. And then bye bye opera and welcome flashget.
• When you download something as big as a DVD iso, you usually can find MD5 checksums in the same folder where you downloaded the files; those are basically a way to tell you if the file you just download is the same as the one in the original server. In this case, the link to the MD5 is this
  

  ftp://ftp.monash.edu.au/pub/linux/disk2/debian-cd/3.1_r0a/i386/iso-dvd/MD5SUMS

  Then you use something like this
  

  http://www.pc-tools.net/win32/md5sums/

  To compare the generated md5 checksum of your downloaded file against the one in the server, if the md5 string is exactly the same, then you are ok. Otherwise is likely you got a corrupted file
  This I just told you about the md5 is just a "beginners" intro. Sorry if you knew that already, or if you didnt, then investigate yourself to know more about the md5 hashing algorithm.

Hope this helps. Cheers

[ericrun]

I'd recommend using jigdo. It individually downloads every file. Should something happen to your download, I think it can use checksums to verify the files it's downloaded. Then if you want to update your image later to get the latest and greatest, you can download the latest jigdo data files, point the program to your previous files, and it will only download the files that have changed. Find more information at http://www.debian.org/CD/jigdo-cd/.