was wondering what you might recommend as a good one?

basically have some files that i cannot open (would come in handy in future).

thanks 🙂

Huh? What format files?

Cannot open why – corrupted or protected ? Edit: or perhaps in a format your computer doesn’t recognise.

Yeah, as others have said, it doesn’t work like that. To “open” a given file requires an application which understands what that file is. There’s no such thing as a generic file opener.

apologies,they are files my computer doesn’t recognize (SFV,PAR2 and other files that have numbers 01,02 e.t.c 😕

it looks for the appropriate files opener software online,but was hoping to find some type of software that would have them already (so i wouldn’t have to keep downloading loads of file opening thingumyjuigs.

Ah. Are they files from a Torrent site? The 01, 02 etc will all need to be “stitched together” then you’ll need something to handle the file produced.

Are you talking about opening compressed file archives? I think you might be.

Par2 files are a type of archive like zip files, it seems. So you need a programme capable of reading them.. I guess this is what you are asking.

It looks like you need a specific software, the generic ones I know don’t seem to use it.

sfv are checksum files – for ensuring integrity of the .01, .02, etc files.

They are a single archive (Zip, RAR, etc) split up into equal chunks.

One reason for splitting them up is its easier to re-download a section if it’s corrupt (failes CRC check).

Instead of re-downloading a whole 2GB file, you can select just the single 200MB “.03” archive.

Anyway, 7-Zip will open the ‘master’ archive no problem.

SFV is a checksum file, a bit like an MD5 hash. You don’t need to open it directly. PAR2 is similar.

I’d suggest that what you’ve got there may be a multipart RARed file. Try WinRAR, point it to the .rar if there is one, or the .001 otherwise.

they are files for an old pc helicopter sim game comanche 4. they were an rar file originally which i opened with 7z.

will try and find the corresponding file openers. thanks for all your help btw 🙂

sounds like you have an multiple file archive, as SFV files are usually used to “check” the archive is intact. One of the files is “index” the rest is the data…
Try using http://www.7-zip.org/

(edit: Wow far too slow)

Is this thing on?

There are no ‘corresponding file openers’, if you’ve opened the RAR file then it’s used the other files as needed.

I imagine they are ROM files and you need the correct emulator to play them.

game

That’s a surprise! 😉

try notepad.exe i’ve yet to find a file format that can’t open.

sorry to come across as an idiot 😉 but i have unrar’ed the files and this is what they look like
the computer doesn’t recognize them? appreciate all your help (thanks for helping a computer numpty out 😆

Is this thing on?

You need to speak a little bit louder….

I SAID YOU NEED TO SPEAK A LITTLE BIT LOUDER!!!

You’ve extracted them to individual destinations, you need to select all the the numbered archives and extract them to the same target…. Lasso them all, right click and extract to the filename not including a number(using Winrar)

thanks (i will understand this/by the gods i will win 😉

That first file is recognised by Windows or one of your applications, which is why it has an icon. I don’t recognise it though.

By default, since XP, windows hides file extensions – which is stupid, it causes a lot of confusion. Right-click on that first one and click properties, see what the filename is.

Do what Schrickvr?

Umm, to me it looks like that is another set of archive files, as in the orignal file have been archived then archived again (used to be std practice, to try and squeeze them as small as possible – it really didn’t work that well). Try opening the par2 file with 7z/Winrar again…

+1

flt-com4.par2 is the “master”, which needs to be opened in 7zip.

par2 = Parity Archive

1. Install 7Zip
2. Right click .par2 -> 7-Zip -> Extract Here

thanks a lot everyone,i have managed to unzip the file (i unzipped the unzipped rar file again/hope that made sense 😕 using winrar.

i now have an iso icon 🙂

hopefully i’ll soon be flying/blowing stuff up in my new comanche 😉

Cougar – Is this thing on?

😆

That first file is recognised by Windows or one of your applications, which is why it has an icon. I don’t recognise it though.

That’s an .nfo, which is a text file containing information on how l33t the cracker / file sharer is. The icon is recognised because Windows (incorrectly, in this case) associates .nfo as output from System Information (msconfig).

The rest is an archive within an archive, as we’ve now discovered. Though as this is probably an illegal torrent rather than an old backup I’d suggest that perhaps the discussion should end here.

Sounds like they have been downloaded from a binary news group. Download Quickpar, this will open the par2 file and check the rars. It can be used to repair the blocks and will tell you if you need to download more. If the rars are complete, you can then extract the content with Winrar.