Hello again, we all know that there are times one has to extract a file from the CDROM because the original got damaged.
In Windows, one can use system file check tool, but in a real crisis, when windows won't launch, one can extract files from a DOS commandline.
A great many people do not have copies of the cabinets on their hard disk, and they need access to the CDROM.
This means that one can do this from a floppy with CDROM support, or by booting from the CD.
When you boot from that EBD or "start disk" you made, you find EXT and/or EXTRACT executables available to you.
note;
when you look for EXT.EXE on your floppy, and do not find it, that is because EXT.exe is found in ebd.cab, and the "start disk" extracts it to the RAMDRIVE (which makes it available to you).
The EBD has it on the floppy itself.
These two tools are different, but both can do the job.
While using EXTRACT.exe I found that for cabnames, you can use a wildcard option, and that the tool will search the file in the possible candidates rather than just one cabinet
Because FE and SE put files in different cabinets, using this /A option is quite useful.
For extract in DOS, adding the /? option presents you some help.
extract /?
Microsoft ® Cabinet Extraction Tool - Version (16) 1.00.603.0 (08/14/97)
Copyright © Microsoft Corp 1994-1997. All rights reserved.
EXTRACT [/Y] [/A] [/D | /E] [/L dir] cabinet [filename ...]
EXTRACT [/Y] source
EXTRACT [/Y] /C source destination cabinet - Cabinet file (contains two or more files).
filename - Name of the file to extract from the cabinet.
Wild cards and multiple filenames (separated by
blanks) may be used.
source - Compressed file (a cabinet with only one file).
newname - New filename to give the extracted file.
If not supplied, the original name is used.
/A Process ALL cabinets. Follows cabinet chain
starting in first cabinet mentioned.
/C Copy source file to destination (to copy from DMF disks).
/D Display cabinet directory (use with filename to avoid extract).
/E Extract (use instead of *.* to extract all files).
/L dir Location to place extracted files (default is current directory).
/Y Do not prompt before overwriting an existing file.
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EXT behaves much different
you just hit enter after typing EXT
you direct it to the folder where your cabinets are in, and it asks what file you want to extract
then it asks where you want it extracted to
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When you run SFC in windows to extract a single file, you can point the tool to the folder containing your cabinets.
Knowing what cabinet a file is in is useful, and I once grabbed these two full listings off the net.
They are no longer up there, and Microsoft splits them up which is not as easy....
I feel having a full list available at all times is useful, and here they are.
cabcontent SECOND Edition
cabcontent FIRST edition
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for gentlebeings making use of windows win 95 and ME
Here is a site where I found some information on the various windows versions.
It deals with modem problems first, but scroll down and you see it also has links to cabinet contents for various versions, and some extraction methods are explained better than I can do it.
(Notice that the EXT tool is not mentioned there, but I think you will remember it is available to you when a crisis hits.)
http://www.modem-help.co.uk/help/cab.html
Kind regards, Jaak
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