[gsgs]

I found that other thread, saying that the format is complicated,
so there is no such table.

http://seqanswers.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-12054.html

I'm having problems with files >4GB and wanted to test it
on a partially downloaded file first

I have to split the large files, so they work with my programs.
It's also faster, better for testing, dealing with 4GB files is tedious.

I doubt that sra-tools will work with such splitted files

[gsgs]

OK, I tried to download the file to my external drive, it took 5.5h ,
until an error message was displayed that the file couldn't be copied.

Then I searched my main HD and found that it was put into a temporary file
which had 4631463048 Bytes, so apparently >4GB is possible on my
main drive but not on the external one.
(Windows XP, computer bought in 2010 or 2011)


I made a copy of that temporary file to another file on the maindrive,
then I closed the error window, and indeed, the temporary file was
deleted, but luckily I had the copy.
As expected I can't copy that file to the external drive nor can I access it
with any of my programs.
But DOS-commands copy,type,find do work.

So, I need a program that splits the big file into 2 smaller files, that can be assessed.

[GenoMax]

If you are using 32-bit windows XP (which you likely are) this may not be possible. What kind of format do you have on your external drive? You may need NTFS for files > 4GB.

[dpryan]

Ah, yeah, I expect that the SRA format is pretty non-trivial from the various discussions of it. Honestly, if your computer is having issues with files ~4GB then you might just be better off using someone else's (though check if the drive is NTFS formatted), particularly if you're stuck on windows. Got a labmate with a Mac?

[gsgs]

I cannot just switch to Win64, since I need all my old programs
that were written on 16bit or 32bit

[GenoMax]

I cannot just switch to Win64, since I need all my old programs
that were written on 16bit or 32bit

It should be possible to use those on the 64-bit windows (you could also run a VM and 32-bit windows, if you find an absolute need for it).

[gsgs]

I found downloaded,unzipped,copied
sra decrypt for Win 32

but I get the error:

C:\1918>vdb-decr tu1
2013-08-21T19:04:59 vdb-decr.2.3.2 err: encryption key not found while opening m
anager within virtual file system module - unable to obtain a password
2013-08-21T19:04:59 vdb-decr.2.3.2: exiting: RC(rcVFS,rcMgr,rcOpening,rcEncrypti
onKey,rcNotFound) (2615479768)


they didn't say in the paper or at the NCBI download page
that I need a password

[dpryan]

Your life would be much easier if you just used a computer that could download and convert the whole file from SRA using fastq-dump. Just borrow someone's laptop instead of trying to reinvent the wheel (particularly since this this particular wheel has terrible documentation).

[gsgs]

you won't believe me, but I really need all these old programs that
that no longer work with these big files
and often give other problems with Win64
A utility to split the files looks so much easier.
Of course, I wrote such an utility decades ago, really simple,
but compiled with 16bit --> don't work.
A 64-bit compiler might help, at least to run a few of my programs
on 64-bit. But remembering how much trouble it was to install and
understand my 16-bit compiler (GCC3.2,DJGPP) in 2002 ...