I just completed the 45MB download of BeOS personal edition (5?) and it doesnt work - it says the files are corrupt after the 'reading package' message. Help! it took ages to download... Al

If it's corrupt, it's corrupt. I bet you used a dial-up connection for the download. Check for CRC errors in your connection. Many modems can give you an AMAZING amount of information about the type and integrity of connection you're getting. Typically, giving them an appropriate AT command will return the information, provided these features are supported. For example, if you've got a US Robotics modem, you can use ATI6 and ATI11 commands to see what's going on. Errors are often caused by noise on the line. Nine times out of ten, there's nothing you can do about this, but sometimes the noise is induced locally (phone line running around a power supply, coiled up near a transformer somewhere, etc.) or could be the result of a poor electrical connection somehwere, a bad jack or plug, etc. If you're using a crappy software-based "modem", such as an RPI, Win modem, or HSP (Host Signal Processing) type device, you might want to try 1. Reducing the load on the system, stop all applications except for the download, kill processes running in the background you don't need, lower the video resolution and color depth, etc. 2. Getting a real hardware-based modem Some modems provide better error-correction than others. You might want to make sure you're using the actual modem driver from the manufacturer rather than a generic driver that doesn't support any additional error-correction your modem may provide. You may be able to set any additional error-correction features using AT commands. You might also want to update the modem's BIOS, if this is possible. You might also want to slow down the connection. If the modem is negotiating a v.90 connection, you might want to specify a v.34 connection instead. This can be especially helpful for some HSP modems, particularly those with a PCTel chipset. If your BeOS PE download got corrupted, there's a good chance that other things (service packs, device drivers, BIOS images, etc.) might possibly suffer the same fate. An error-prone connection can cause all sorts of problems.

Thanks for the information. Yeah i use 56K dial-up access! Could explain the reason. I did use Download Accelerator, which downloads files in like 4 sections, the joins these at the end to make up the file - maybe this caused a problem? Once again, i appreciate the help Al

I've never used or tested download accelerators, but I've always been suspicious of them. You can use an AT command embedded in an initializion string to limit your modem connection speed. You can specify a protocol for the connection as well. You can do this to limit your connection to v.34, which might help. Disabling the download accelerator may also help. Good luck--I know from experience that 45MB is a pretty big chunk to download over a dialup connection, even with a fast v.90 connection. You might also want to check out GetRight, or possibly use the latest version of the Opera Web browser for whatever operating system you're using. Opera has an excellent integrated download manager than can let you pause, resume, and reload. It also checks for some types of errors and lets you know if the reported size of the file differs from what you actually downloaded. Again, good luck!

I've decided to use a program called SmartFTP so that i can get the file from an FTP server - it has resume support also, so i can carry on downloading tommorow, because i know i wont get it finished tonight (i get disconnected by my ISP every 2 hours) The difference is it downloads just one file, not in 4 chunks, so i hope it'll work out this time. Thanks for the information on Opera though - if the FTP method doesnt work ill try that out to see if its 3rd time lucky! Alex

They used a goofy installshield because they needed a way to get one single contigious file for the image.be file from the .cab downloaded file. Otherwise there are ways to get the slightly smaller beforlinux to work also but more fiddling. Maybe a different mirror might help. Try http://www.planetmirror.com/pub/beos/beos/ Look for other mirrors on your side of the world. Check Frizbe.net for ideas on hardware problems that may show up.