Can I concatenate Nero image files on NTFS?

[MediumRare]

I'm not sure if this is the right forum- it may belong in general software.

Anyway, I have some Nero image files for DVDs that are larger than 4 GiB. These are on a FAT32 partition and show up in 2 parts, e.g. image.nrg and image.nrg.001

I want to convert the partition to NTFS, which can handle larger files, and want to simplify things. Can I just concatenate these files as in (from command prompt)

Code: Select all

copy /b image.nrg+image.nrg.001 image_all.nrg

or would it be safer to mount the image with image drive, copy the files to a "real" folder and create new images?

Thanks.

G

[CowboySlim]

I haven't the foggiest. I wonder if Isobuster would bust back out to *vob video files and then Nero VisionExpress could be used to "concatenate" them as if they were one movie? Or you might use Nero to do an image burn which should leave with a playable DVD Video, read them back in as if you were ripping them with DVDDecrypter and then let NVE stick 'em together?

Good thing to try and learn.

[MediumRare]

Well, the best way to find out seems to be to try it! Here's what I did:

1. open image.nrg on the FAT32 drive with Isobuster and try to copy the last few files straddling the file system 4 GiB boundary. An error resulted for files above the boundary!
2. mount image.nrg (FAT32) with Nero ImageDrive and copy these same files to a "real" directory. OK.
3. concatenate image.nrg and image.nrg.001 to image_all.nrg on an NTFS drive
4. mount image_all.nrg (NTFS) with Nero ImageDrive and copy these same files to another "real" directory. OK.
5. open image_all.nrg (NTFS) with Isobuster and copy the files to yet another "real" directory. OK.
6. do a binary comparison (Unix diff or DOS fc/b) of files from cases 2,4 and 5. These are all identical

My conclusion is: binary concatenation on the NTFS volume (as suggested in my first post) works!:D

G

[dodecahedron]

i dont' understand what step 2 is doing.
in 4 and 5 you're saying that the files extracted by Nero DriveImage and by IsoBuster from the image_all.nrg (NTFS) file are the same, and i guess it's no big surprise.
the question is: are files from image.nrg (FAT32) (step 2) identical to some of the files extracted from image_all.nrg (NTFS) (by some i mean the half of the files that come from the first .nrg that made image_all.nrg) ?
and how about comparing the same with the files from the second .nrg ?

i must say i'm surprised this worked.
i'd have thought that .nrg files have some more structure to them then just a container of files....and that concatenation would not work.

OK just re-read your post, and if i'm reading it right, you say you already did the first thing i said above and the result is that the files are indeed idntica. OK what about the files from the 2nd .nrg ?

[MediumRare]

i must say i'm surprised this worked.

So was I !!

i'd have thought that .nrg files have some more structure to them then just a container of files....and that concatenation would not work.

Well, NERO generates this image and the 4 GiB limit is a file system thing. I can burn the image from Nero, even if it's in 2 parts on a FAT32 drive- I just name the first file (image.nrg) - so obviously they've done something to deal with it.

Isobuster apparently reads the file list from the first part of the image and when I try to extract files with high LBA addresses (which slop over into image.nrg.001), gets an error because it's not aware of this second part.

Nero ImageDrive apparently has the same awareness for the large images as the main application does- that's what I found out by tring this.

OK just re-read your post, and if i'm reading it right, you say you already did the first thing i said above and the result is that the files are indeed idntica. OK what about the files from the 2nd .nrg ?

The files I extracted (or tried to) in steps 1,2,4 and 5 were always the same files (at high LBA address).

What I'm going to have to try still is to see if the files from the image are identical to the originals. I'll have to track down a suitable image first.

G

[MediumRare]

What I'm going to have to try still is to see if the files from the image are identical to the originals. I'll have to track down a suitable image first.

Well I tried it, and this test, too, was passed. So in the end I answered my own question. I'm very happy that the procedure turned out ot be so simple!

The handling of oversize images on FAT32 is something that Nero has done well!

G