Read fails - result too large

[Qofcheez]

Over the past couple of weeks I've been dowloading a massive file - 160G.  I'd gotten around 80% of it.  Yesterday after a brief software update (OSX Snow Leopard) I suddenly lost the connection and got an error.  Every attempt to restart the download has resulted in "Error: Disk read error - read fails - result too large".  It always happens at 18.7% of the check.

I did notice I was out of room on my hard drive so delete items to give me over 100G room (and emptied the trash)

Since then I have:

1. updated Vuze
2. ran repair permissions in the disk utility
3. restarted numerous times
4. forced recheck of file
5.  Tried running check with next to nothing else running

I am really hoping not to have to start the download again, it has been going for so long and I was so close to finishing!  Any thoughts?

[GaryE]

It is a single file?  Or multiple files?

You said a file but I just want to be sure.

If it is indeed a single file . . . the fact that you ran out of disk space might explain the problem.

I am far from on expert on such things . . . but I would suspect that if you started writing a file and you ran out of space that the HD would go a bit haywire.  You repaired the disk using disk utility (which seems like the right step to me) however, due to you running out of space and repairing the disk etc it is very possible that you really only have about 18% of the file at this point.

I have had similar problems before . . . and it usually comes down to a bad file or a bad disk sector or something.  I have not experienced this problem in several years but what I think I remember doing was to delete the bad file and just go on leeching the torrent.  If the torrent really is just one huge file . . . this will of course mean deleting the whole thing and starting over.  On the other hand if the torrent is indeed made up of individual files (which I find much much more likely) you just need to figure out which file(s) are at that 18.7% point and just delete those.

Report back and I can try to explain to you how to find out which files to delete (assuming it is a multi file torrent).

 

[Qofcheez]

Report back and I can try to explain to you how to find out which files to delete (assuming it is a multi file torrent).

 
 

Thank you!  Actually it is multiple files.  At least 500 of them, nearly 40,000 pieces.  Actually I don't even need the whole thing, just key sections.

 

 

[Qofcheez]

Yay!  I figured out how to delete all the files I didn't need and the download has restarted successfully!  Thanks for getting me on the right track!
 

[GaryE]

No problem.  Glad I could help in whatever little way I did.