First, I have to say don't be a moron, if you don't get the whole file, don't leave it sitting around for other poor suckers to download from you. Either delete it or move it out of your shared folder so other people don't waste their time on it.
That said, when you download a file and Wrapster says "You're Fucked" you may not be. Depending on the kind of file you might be able to salvage your download, or at least part of it. Wrapster just adds a header and tail onto each file, concatenates them and adds MP3 header information to make Napster see the file. Also, sometimes extra information gets appended to the end of the file, causing Wrapster to puke, even though
the whole file is really there. You can use a hex editor to delete the unwanted headers and possibly salvage the files.
Try this next time you have a file you think is complete but Wrapster complains about:
1. Open the wrapster file in your hex editor.
2. Scan through the file looking for an appropriate filename.
3. Shortly after the filename there will be a stretch of nulls and a few miscellaneous characters followed by the actual file itself. Search for the appropriate header for the particular file type you are working with, and then delete everything in the file BEFORE the first character of the header. Save the result with an appropriate extension and try it out.
4. For multiple files, repeat steps 2 and 3 above through the rest of the file.
To see what headers look like, just open up some other files of the same type using your hex editor, and after looking at a few the pattern will be obvious.
Here's a few typical headers from some of my own files. The exact values are not always exactly the same, but the overall pattern is the same.
Jpeg image
HEX Ascii
FF D8 FF E0 00 01 ╪ α JFIF
ZIP Archive
50 4B 03 04 14 00 PK
MS Executable Program
4D 5A 90 00 MZÉ
MPEG video clip
00 00 01 BA ║ (look for the 00 00 01, followed by something in the range of BA)
AVI video clip
52 49 46 46 CO 54 14 00 RIFF└T
This works well for movies and pictures, and sometimes works for programs and archives. Basically, it lets you salvage something from a long download that is almost but not quite complete, or from a complete download that still doesn't work for some reason.
Comments, bitches, flames, suggestions and sexual favors to billybill@hotpop.com
