A weird tech question

[vvvexation]

I've got some file fragments on my computer left over from a hard drive crash a while ago, and I've been going through them looking for the remains of some text files I'd rather not have lost.  A couple of them, though, are apparently too big for me to open either with Notepad or in DOS Edit mode without the system hanging.  Is there any other program I can use to get at the contents, or is there a way I can somehow break them into pieces of more manageable size?

Comments

[rfrench.livejournal.com]

How about emacs?

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

*searches*
*downloads*
*attempts to figure out install instructions*
*realizes she is not nearly geeky enough*

Is there an "Emacs for Dummies" out there?

[rfrench.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, well I'm not sure I can help you with the installation - I do my installations the old fashioned way, by copying an existing good installation :-)

Here is a quick reference guide (http://zoo.cs.yale.edu/classes/cs210/help/emacs.html) I found about how to use it once you have it installed.

Actually, here (http://www.cs.utah.edu/~alee/emacs/emacs.html) is a great explanation about installing emacs I just found.

[catamorphism.livejournal.com]

As long as the files are less than 256 MB...

[emmett-the-sane.livejournal.com]

There's also wordpad, which is standard on at least *older* versions of windows than XP (not positive about XP).

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

*tries that*

Nope, same result as with Notepad. (i.e. *churn churn churn* *Ctrl-Alt-Del* "Program Not Responding")

[olego.livejournal.com]

How many Megabytes are the files?

[olego.livejournal.com]

And how much RAM have you got?

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

*facepalm* Less than the size of those files. I suppose that would explain it?

[olego.livejournal.com]

What's a facepalm? And that does not necessarily explain it, but it's a very good reason for that. I'm still looking for something...

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

Cross between smack in the forehead and hiding head in hands. Remind me and I'll demonstrate in person sometime.

[emmett-the-sane.livejournal.com]

Can you get the textfiles onto a unix system somewhere? If you don't have login access somewhere, I can give you an account on thesane.com, probably... Then you can use vi or emacs on that system.

Also, are you sure that the files are actually textfiles?

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

I think I've succeeded in getting emacs installed on my system. But no, not all of them are textfiles; one of the things I'm trying to figure out is which ones are.

opening a random file

[http://users.livejournal.com/_duncan/]

I'm surprised wordpad wouldn't open the files. That implies it's not so much a size issue as a formatting issue. In the future, with a known-text file, MS-Word is pretty good about opening big things.

For files of questionable content you want something that doesn't care about the format (and won't every try to RUN anything). Ideally you'd want a binary editor or "Hex editor" which will show you the file's contents in two panes, one listing the data nibble by nibble and one decoding that into ASCII.

The one I have on hand was written for Windows 3.1. It works ... as long as the command line arguments you give it include no long filenames and no spaces. Haven't seen a free one more up-to-date than that... but haven't looked very hard.

If you want that one, just ask. If you find a better one, share its location. :)

The same concept is a standard command line tool under most unices.

Re: opening a random file

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

Might as well try that if other measures don't work.

Re: opening a random file

[http://users.livejournal.com/_duncan/]

OK. I've uploaded it here: HexEdit_v1.2.zip (http://punk.net/~duncan/download/HexEdit_v1.2.zip)

I believe my host to be clean but, as always, pointing your scanner at it would be good policy.

Re: opening a random file

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

Whaddaya know, it seems to be working. Cool.

Re: opening a random file

[http://users.livejournal.com/_duncan/]

So after all that did you find some of the content you wanted in these fragments-converted-to-files?

Re: opening a random file

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, no.

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

Go here and download utlos2.zip. What you want is an incredibly handy unix utility called strings.exe, which prints out all the strings in a binary file.