decompression error #5

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Balou
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decompression error #5

Post by Balou »

While reinstalling witp-ae, it suddenly said decompression error. What's that, and how should i proceed ?
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witpqs
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RE: decompression error #5

Post by witpqs »

Sounds like an error on your drive, either where your WITP-AE download was stored or where you were installing it to. You can try again.

But also look into if your drive is going bad. Possible consider SpinRite (cost ~$90 at grc.com).
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BBfanboy
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RE: decompression error #5

Post by BBfanboy »

ORIGINAL: witpqs

Sounds like an error on your drive, either where your WITP-AE download was stored or where you were installing it to. You can try again.

But also look into if your drive is going bad. Possible consider SpinRite (cost ~$90 at grc.com).
Doesn't windows still have the "Diskcheck" utility to scan the drive and mark (quarantine) bad sectors? That should be sufficient without spending the $$.

It is also possible that the file was corrupted during the download and you might have to download it again. I always choose to download and save (rather than download and run) so that I have the file in future in case I want to re-install from the compressed file.
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Korvar
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RE: decompression error #5

Post by Korvar »

I agree that it sounds like there may be bad sectors on your hard drive and/or your WitPAE download may be corrupted.

Try re-downloading the WitPAE install file from the Matrix members' page - that's the easiest thing to try.

If that doesn't work, there are some free utilities that you can use to help diagnose and perhaps 'fix' any bad sectors (most times they're not repaired, but rather marked as not to be used any longer). The simplest thing to do is to open up File Explorer in Windows (press Windows Key + R and then type in "explorer" (without quotes) if you don't know how to get to it), then right-click the hard drive in question, go to Properties, then the Tools tab in the Properties windows that pops up. Under error checking, click the "Check" button and let it scan the drive.

Another way to do the same thing - but when Windows isn't active, is to use the "chkdsk" (stands for 'check disk') utility that has been around since the DOS days. Open up a Command Prompt with administrator privileges (you can do this by pressing Ctrl + Alt + Del to get to Task Manager, then clicking "File" at the top, and "Run new task". It's just like the Run window you used previously, but it has a check box to run something with admin privileges. Type in "cmd" (without quotes) into the box, and hit the Enter key. From the Command Prompt window, type the following:

Code: Select all

chkdsk /offlinescanandfix
It will tell you that it will perform a scan the next time you restart the computer. You don't have to restart right away - but do so at the next convenient opportunity and the scan will be done during the boot process.

You can also use the SMART diagnostics to see if there are problems popping up with your hard drives. Many utilities can access the SMART data - a free one is Speccy. It will give you warning symbols if any of the SMART stats are out of acceptable parameters. It's also useful to observe a drive over time - so you can see if a drive is progressively getting worse long before it fails - and take appropriate measures to back-up your data before there's a serious issue.

Although I admire the work of Steve Gibson at GRC, I would advise not to get SpinRite unless you're sure you need it. It is still the go-to hard disk tool for what I call legacy hard drives - but it cannot handle modern hard drives with large capacities and it certainly isn't of any use with a solid date drive, which is where storage is headed with PCs. That said, if your hard drive is close or greater than 10 years old, SpinRite can be an amazing tool to resolve bad clusters. It's basically chkdsk on steroids and can even fully repair bad clusters in some cases.

Edit: BBfanboy beat me to it while I was typing this up [:D]
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witpqs
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RE: decompression error #5

Post by witpqs »

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

ORIGINAL: witpqs

Sounds like an error on your drive, either where your WITP-AE download was stored or where you were installing it to. You can try again.

But also look into if your drive is going bad. Possible consider SpinRite (cost ~$90 at grc.com).
Doesn't windows still have the "Diskcheck" utility to scan the drive and mark (quarantine) bad sectors? That should be sufficient without spending the $$.
Totally not the same. To really find out what SpiRite does read the info on the website. At any rate, Diskcheck does not recover data at all that I am aware of.

It is also possible that the file was corrupted during the download and you might have to download it again. I always choose to download and save (rather than download and run) so that I have the file in future in case I want to re-install from the compressed file.
A re-download might be in order. I infer that he downloaded and installed successfully from that download the first time (he wrote "reinstall"), so something must have happened since then. A new download might work, but if the disk is getting funky it might not work for long without some intervention (or even then).
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witpqs
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RE: decompression error #5

Post by witpqs »

ORIGINAL: Korvar

I agree that it sounds like there may be bad sectors on your hard drive and/or your WitPAE download may be corrupted.

Try re-downloading the WitPAE install file from the Matrix members' page - that's the easiest thing to try.

If that doesn't work, there are some free utilities that you can use to help diagnose and perhaps 'fix' any bad sectors (most times they're not repaired, but rather marked as not to be used any longer). The simplest thing to do is to open up File Explorer in Windows (press Windows Key + R and then type in "explorer" (without quotes) if you don't know how to get to it), then right-click the hard drive in question, go to Properties, then the Tools tab in the Properties windows that pops up. Under error checking, click the "Check" button and let it scan the drive.

Another way to do the same thing - but when Windows isn't active, is to use the "chkdsk" (stands for 'check disk') utility that has been around since the DOS days. Open up a Command Prompt with administrator privileges (you can do this by pressing Ctrl + Alt + Del to get to Task Manager, then clicking "File" at the top, and "Run new task". It's just like the Run window you used previously, but it has a check box to run something with admin privileges. Type in "cmd" (without quotes) into the box, and hit the Enter key. From the Command Prompt window, type the following:

Code: Select all

chkdsk /offlinescanandfix
It will tell you that it will perform a scan the next time you restart the computer. You don't have to restart right away - but do so at the next convenient opportunity and the scan will be done during the boot process.

You can also use the SMART diagnostics to see if there are problems popping up with your hard drives. Many utilities can access the SMART data - a free one is Speccy. It will give you warning symbols if any of the SMART stats are out of acceptable parameters. It's also useful to observe a drive over time - so you can see if a drive is progressively getting worse long before it fails - and take appropriate measures to back-up your data before there's a serious issue.

Although I admire the work of Steve Gibson at GRC, I would advise not to get SpinRite unless you're sure you need it. It is still the go-to hard disk tool for what I call legacy hard drives - but it cannot handle modern hard drives with large capacities and it certainly isn't of any use with a solid date drive, which is where storage is headed with PCs. That said, if your hard drive is close or greater than 10 years old, SpinRite can be an amazing tool to resolve bad clusters. It's basically chkdsk on steroids and can even fully repair bad clusters in some cases.

Edit: BBfanboy beat me to it while I was typing this up [:D]
SpinRite is used for SSD also, and I have used it on large capacity HDD as have many others.
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Korvar
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RE: decompression error #5

Post by Korvar »

ORIGINAL: witpqs
SpinRite is used for SSD also, and I have used it on large capacity HDD as have many others.

SpinRite can do read scans on SSDs, but then you're spending $90 on something that is bundled with any SSD worth its salt (assuming you have no other drives that could use SpinRite). The deep scans SpinRite is famous for will only unnecessarily wear out an SSD.
Gibson said that he could "see absolutely no possible benefit to running SpinRite on a solid-state drive" and later "SpinRite is all about mechanics and magnetics, neither of which exist, by design, in an SSD".

^ That's a direct quote from the author of SpinRite.

And SpinRite does have a data cap - it can access a maximum of 268,435,456 sectors - somewhere between 128GB and 1TB depending on the BIOS capabilities/configuration. So in modern terms a small to medium drive. I've run into it personally.
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Balou
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RE: decompression error #5

Post by Balou »

Thanks to all of you.
However, I am not sure it's the drive, since it worked perfectly when it came to decompress other files on a CD. Anyway, I went to Matrix, maybe I can download the game from an external source.
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witpqs
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RE: decompression error #5

Post by witpqs »

ORIGINAL: Korvar

ORIGINAL: witpqs
SpinRite is used for SSD also, and I have used it on large capacity HDD as have many others.

SpinRite can do read scans on SSDs, but then you're spending $90 on something that is bundled with any SSD worth its salt (assuming you have no other drives that could use SpinRite). The deep scans SpinRite is famous for will only unnecessarily wear out an SSD.
Gibson said that he could "see absolutely no possible benefit to running SpinRite on a solid-state drive" and later "SpinRite is all about mechanics and magnetics, neither of which exist, by design, in an SSD".

^ That's a direct quote from the author of SpinRite.

And SpinRite does have a data cap - it can access a maximum of 268,435,456 sectors - somewhere between 128GB and 1TB depending on the BIOS capabilities/configuration. So in modern terms a small to medium drive. I've run into it personally.
I have used SpinRite on a 2 TB drive and 1 TB drives no problem. The SSD quote is old and he has changed his position. And it does not where out any modern SSD.

But this is a distraction: I mentioned SpinRite for the OP's benefit depending on where this goes. If he has a disk issue he might have other data on the drive lost without being able to download it again. In a case like that SpinRite could help.
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Balou
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RE: decompression error #5

Post by Balou »

FYI: It must be the CD. Same Problem using two different brand new drives.
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Korvar
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RE: decompression error #5

Post by Korvar »

ORIGINAL: witpqs
But this is a distraction

Yep, I agree. Let's move on and agree to disagree. [:D]

ORIGINAL: Balou

FYI: It must be the CD.

CD? CD!?! [:D]

If it's giving you trouble, you can download the install file from the Matrix members' page. You'll need to log in and register your copy of WitPAE before you can download the file.

You'll need the WarinthePacificAdmiralsEdition-SetupRelease-v10079DR.exe from the Matrix members page for the basic install, then the WarinthePacificAdmiralsEdition-UpdateComp-v1126a.exe official release, as well as the AEupdate1126b.exe unoffical beta file. The beta file is of course optional and comes from the forums, not the Matrix member downloads. In addition, the scenario data file updates and the AI updates via the forums, if you desire those.
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Balou
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RE: decompression error #5

Post by Balou »

ORIGINAL: Korvar


If it's giving you trouble, you can download the install file from the Matrix members' page. You'll need to log in and register your copy of WitPAE before you can download the file.

You'll need the WarinthePacificAdmiralsEdition-SetupRelease-v10079DR.exe from the Matrix members page for the basic install, then the WarinthePacificAdmiralsEdition-UpdateComp-v1126a.exe official release, as well as the AEupdate1126b.exe unoffical beta file. The beta file is of course optional and comes from the forums, not the Matrix member downloads. In addition, the scenario data file updates and the AI updates via the forums, if you desire those.

That's what I did. Game up and running.
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Korvar
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RE: decompression error #5

Post by Korvar »

Nice! Glad to hear it.
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witpqs
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RE: decompression error #5

Post by witpqs »

[8D]
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witpqs
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RE: decompression error #5

Post by witpqs »

Now: make sure you have a backup of anything you consider important because that drive might be wonky!
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RE: decompression error #5

Post by wwengr »

What Operating System are you running? Windows 10?
I have been inputting my orders for the campaign game first turn since July 4, 2009. I'm getting close. In another month or two, I might be able to run the turn!
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Balou
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RE: decompression error #5

Post by Balou »

8
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