I'm doing some tests with backup of software onto DVD's (Dual Layer), and I am wondering this : Even when you have NTFS filesystem, and you have a DVD DL writer, the limit of a file to write (a zipfile, for example), is still 4 gigabyte, because the most zipping tools (including WinZip) cannot handle more than 4Gig files. So, how would you solve this issue ? I would like to write 1 file to a DVD DL, with an easy to use format (zip is highly ranked there). Also, in the near future, we will we having the option to write 25 gig, 50 gigs, to a medium. What would be the maximum of a file you could write, considering using Windows XP and NTFS filesystems. Is it higher than 50 gig ?

The "zip64" format will handle large files. WinZIp since version 9.0 (i believe) supports these large files. Here are some freeware alternatives that also support zip64 files: http://www.snapfiles.com/downloadfi... -Ryan Adams http://RyanTAdams.com

It appears winrar will handle unlimited size. http://www.win-rar.com/index.php?id...

If you are trying to use backup software why are you messing with Winzip? Backup programs should have built in compression. You can only compress files so much. Possibly you may not understand how compession utilities work. Basically, there are two facets to most programs. First is to eliminate the slack space that exists with all files systems. This is the unused space when you write a file to a cluster. For instance WinXP usually uses a 4K cluster size when formatting. This means that at least ONE 4k cluster will be used to write a file of any size. So a Word document 1K in size will still use the entire 4k. Second is to eliminate redundancies. This is not something I understand very well so I won' attempt to explain it. Once you have eliminated the slack space there isn't much you can do to compress more without loss. Some files are already in compressed form. Like MP3 or JPG files. You aren't going to get much more out of them. So Zipping a file basically just packs the data in tighter. of course all the data still must be tracked in order to make sense of it when unzipping it, which creates some overhead. Ghost, for example, can make an image file of any size. If you are writing the image file to optical media it can span as many disks as necessary. The only caveate is that Ghost must recognize the burner model in order to span disks. You can even mix and match CDR and DVDR. There are other backup programs as well. With those capabilities why try to re-invent the wheel?

I'm not reinventing the wheel, I'm just trying to do big thinks with the minimum of tools. Backup software is not a favourite of mine, since they use special formats, and I need a universal format (did I mention Zip ?) Also, it's actually not about compression (I don't care about that feauture, I might just disable it), but it is about - what you mention - the "collecting" feature. Or, whatever it is named. Putting files togheter, not only to fill unused diskspace when they would be files on themselves ... ... but, avoid having to give a directory structure to CD and DVD drivers. I have much problems with files being denied being written, because their filename or directoryname, or the directory depth, is not accepted by the CD/DVD format. These things use another format, which is more restrictive than NTFS, to say the least. Zip-tools, also WinZip, are actually supporting this better, even though that is not their main goal.

I'm also checking out Winzip 11 at the moment (evaluation copy), because it works just fine there. I read from version 10 onwards, but it may be 9 already ... I was/am using a registered version of 8. Spanning I like to avoid, cause it destroys the universal aspect of zipping.

Winzip will not backup your entire Harddrive or even one partition. There are hidden and system files that you can't select that are needed to restore the drive. Winzip is also propietory.