Monday, July 27, 2009

How to find if downloaded files are not corrupt

Many a times when you start using a downloaded file it fails. Generally the error messages

which are cited are “File corrupt” , Cannot open header corrupt etc. This happens because the file which was downloaded, did not get downloaded correctly i.e. may be some bit messed up.

Though you cannot avoid this type of error but there is away to make sure what you have downloaded is not broken when you use it in future.  Its called as File Integrity test. These tests make sure you had exactly the same bits of file what you created on server and downloaded on your machine.

There are couple of algorithms like  sum, md5sum, sha1sum, and sfv which generate  a unique hash code, if you can test it after download and see if  hashcode matches, this means you have a file which exactly was on server.

Exact File is one such application to check file integrity and it supports Algorithms like Adler32, MD2, SHA1, RIPEMD128, TIGER128, CRC32, MD4, SHA256, RIPEMD160, TIGER160, MD5, SHA384, TIGER192,GOST and SHA512.

Exact file checksum

Exact file checksum

This way you an now check the downloaded file and match the checksum which is generally given on many sites.

It can also create checksum for your files which you would like others to download. This way you can publis the check sum so if the person tries download it, he will know that.

Other features of Exact Files :

  • Multi threaded application
  • Accepts Unicode file names.
  • Supports big files and folders / subfolders
  • Both GUI and Command like interface is available free of cost.

Download Exact Files



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