Computer stuck after attempting to download 3.99G of files?

Question

A friend of mine posted vacation pictures (3.99G of pix) on an ftp site - and my computer kept crashing. Then, after letting it run overnight it appears that my computer is stuck at 3.99G completed, but it's showing that it hasn't finished yet. Does anyone have any suggestions on how exactly to successfully download these files!! Thank you so much!

Answer 1

Your computer probably isn't actually "stuck" so to speak.



The odds are that while dloading such a large file, it had to swap between RAM and Your virtual memory A LOT.



When the file gets to the 3.99Gigs, it takes the temp(orary) file it created to save the dloaded info into, checks it for accuracy against the original one last time, writes it to a file with a legitimate permanent filename, and then wipes it out of the virtual and system memory.



Problem is, between the temp file, data transfers online, and swap-memory Your talking at least 12Gigs of data and probably more like 16 to 20.



It takes a long time to deal with that much data spread over several locations.



My suggestion is that the other end split the files into a multi-part winzip file, or pick several photos and group them together into smaller filesets. 20 photos should be split to 4 files of 5 photos each, etc ...



If you can get them from a web location, it will be about the same to get them in smaller parts too.





Good Luck!.

Answer 2

Is your computer crashing?(Blue Screen of Death, Lockups, Reboots) or is the file transfer simply not finishing?



If your computer is in fact crashing it is very unlikely the problem is relative to the file transfer itself but a hardware or software error on your computer instead. You can boot into SafeMode with networking (Hit F8 when you boot and choose SAFEMODE WITH NETWORKING. Try the file transfer in this mode and if it does not complete again, it would be safe to conclude there is a hardware issue on your end or an FTP server issue. If it does complete your issue lays in a software compatibility issue in your operating system. Google the word MSCONFIG for guides on how to modify the programs your PC boots up to each time it powers on.



Assuming your "crashing" terminology was incorrectly used in your question and the file transfer just simply isnt finishing it could be any number of things.



#1 Low Hard Drive Space

Your Harddrive could be full. Navigate to my computer, right click on your hard drive and choose PROPERTIES. On the General Tab, click DISK CLEANUP. It will free up a small amount of space and hopefully allow you to finish.



#2 FTP File Trasnfer Quotas

Often FTP servers enable a quota system so clients have to give 1mb for every 10mb they download for instance. Sometimes this can be accidently enabled on the server side with no quota values entered thereby disallowing you to complete the download.



#3 FTP Inadequate FTP Upstream Bandwidth

People often set up FTP servers and do not know all the ins and outs of server setup. There are dozens of issues from Port Forwarding issues to a slow connection from the ISP that can affect how a server can upload data to a client. Often times, people will set up an FTP server on a DSL line with 1500kbps downstream and 756kbps upstream which isnt enough UPSTREAM bandwidth to support more than one download at a time. When multiple requests come in to the FTP server and the server doesnt have the bandwidth to support it's clients, sometimes packets of data get lost and ftp client seems to be forever waiting for that packet. Contact your friend and inquire about any other access issues from users to get a general idea if it is server side before you start pulling out your hair looking at your system.



#4 MSN Skydrive gives you 5gb free space, he can zip the file and upload it there for you to download. Pretty sure Microsoft servers can handle the load :)



#5 Gmail has 7gb storage. He could email them to you.



Dont know if that solved your problem friend but I hope it atleast puts you on the path to resolution.



Good luck

Answer 3

Is your hard drive formatted to NTSF? If its not, that might be why you can't download it. If its one file that is over 4 gig, then that is the limitation issue. Either have your friend break it up into smaller file sizes, or find a computer that is formatted to NTSF, and re-download it.