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Recover Corrupt GZIP Files

It is possible for gzip 'ed files to become corrupt and the normal means of extracting the archive will fail. This is especially disconcerting when you are trying to restore from a gzip 'ed backup. Fortunately, the Gzip Recovery Toolkit ( gzrt ) can offer some hope. It may not recover all your files, but if you are facing this dilemma, anything can be a help. Mageia6 does not provide gzrt , but it was available for Mandriva 2011 and can be downloaded here for the 32-bit version and here for the 64-bit version . No dependencies were needed to install it, but it will complain about having an invalid signature; I chose to ignore that and proceed with the installation. The installed binary is /usr/bin/gzrecover . A man page and documentation is provided. The dependencies that it actually requires ( cpio and libzlib) should already be installed on your system by default. To use, simply launch gzrecover with the corrupt file name as the argument. The output will be a fil

Use Virtualbox to mount drives and transfer data for Tivo Disk Upgrades

I have a Linux-based workstation that is already configured for my needs, but I also needed to replace the disk drive on my Tivo Series 3 (Model TCD652160) using MFSTools 3.2, which is a Linux-based OS designed to copy/create the new Tivo drive. The OS of the Tivo3/HD limits the maximum size of the drive to 2TB. It appears that the Romio has a 6TB limit. Details and download links for MSFTools 3.2 can be found at this link to the MFSTools discussion at  TivoCommunity.com . The images were created with OpenSUSE Leap 42.1 and the available images there are: MFSTools 3.2 ISO   Live ISO MFSTools 3.2 USB/HD   Use dd in Linux or something like HDD Raw Copy Tool in Windows to copy the uncompressed file to a USB or hard drive. MFSTools 3.2 VHD   For use in Hyper-V . MFSTools 3.2 VMX   For use in VMware/VirtualBox. This method is pretty simple if you have a dedicated machine. Just install the disk drives as hda/sda and hdb/sdb and use your CD drive at hdc/sdc , but I don't have

Unreal Tournament GOTY/UT99 for Modern Linux

Released on November 16, 1999, Unreal Tournament (also known as UT99) is an arena first-person shooter for Multiplayer on-line competition or you can play against bots off-line. It features several game types, with more details provided at Wikipedia . The game was re-released on February 25, 2000 as Unreal Tournament Game of the Year Edition (GOTY) which included the three bonus packs released previously and additional mods, or game modifiers that had become popular. It is the GOTY version that is available from STEAM or  GOG.com . The GOG version for Windows installs in Linux and plays well using WINE , PlayOnLinux or Codeweaver's Crossover . There is a Linux binary available in two versions, one for the original game and one for the GOTY edition . Also provided at that site is the Official Bonus Pack with a Linux installer. All these Linux installers are created with makeself . There are some issues using such a crusty old Linux binary. Let's see why getting a Lin

Recover Deleted files from a FAT12 Floppy Disk

While cleaning and re-arranging a storage closet, I came across several boxes of ancient 1.44MB floppy disks, some of which were labeled indicating they contained pictures I had taken using a now-ancient Sony Mavica digital camera (which I still have). I also have a Mitsumi D353FUE USB floppy drive I purchased years ago when floppy drives became old-fashioned. I wanted to save all the images to my hard drive, but what a labor-intensive task that started to be. The Mitsumi drive was showing as /dev/sdk (there are no partitions on a FAT12-formatted floppy disk), so I wrote a simple script that uses a directory named ~/floppy . #!/bin/sh # mkdir ~/floppy # mkdir ~/OLD_PICTURES # copy jpeg files from floppy disks from ~/floppy sudo mount /dev/sdk ~/floppy ls ~/floppy && echo "NOW COPYING FILES" sudo cp -p ~/floppy/*  ~/OLD_PICTURES && sudo chmod +rw ~/OLD_PICTURES/* echo DONE COPYING sudo umount /dev/sdk rm -f ~/OLD_PICTURES/*.411 &&am

Using Clonezilla to Back Up a Windows Drive

I was asked by my daughter to build a MS Windows computer that she could use for her work-from-home job. Normally, I would have provided a Linux workstation, but her job required software that was Windows-only. I put together a  Shuttle XS35 computer that included two hard drives, one for Windows and one for Linux on which I installed Windows7 and Mageia6 respectively. No matter how much I warn her and no matter how much anti-virus software is installed, she will install some application or browse a web page that will install some manner of malware. Rather than spend hours trying to remove it, I figured it would be easier to simply restore a properly-configured Windows7 installation from a backup image of her hard drive. Clonezilla is a partition and disk imaging/cloning program similar to Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image and is available as FOSS. Supporting a variety of file systems, Clonezilla can archive Linux, MS Windows, Mac OS and the BSDs. It is also part of DRBL, Disk