Sergey Oboguev , Jan 17, 2006; 04:20 a.m.
Some time ago I was looking for a solution to split large image file
sets for burning onto multiple DVDs. As I was unable to find
satisfactory existing solution for my purposes, I put together my own
utility to do this. Some inquired me if I have found a solution, so
those who have similar needs may download it from
http://www.oboguev.net/scratch/HardLink.zip
and use it.
This utitily works only on Windows 2000/XP and only on NTFS volumes.
It uses NTFS feature called hard links.
Directory entry on NTFS volume is not a file itself but a pointer to a
file stream. Each file can be linked from multiple directories. Actual
file gets deleted when the last link to it is gone.
Utility I wrote has two parts:
1) Part one allows to copy any source directory tree to another target
directory as hard links.
Files are not duplicated in the process. Created directory tree
contains references to original files, not a copy of the files.
Thus very little extra disk space is consumed in the process.
Created directories and subdirectories however are separate from the
original tree, only files are linked, not original directories.
Thus if you copy directory tree SRC to directory tree DST and perform
manipulations on DST, this does not affect SRC layout.
You may delete files from DST folders, this won't affect SRC folders.
After you are done with DST, you can delete it altogether, this won't
delete the files (assuming you have not deleted them in SRC as well).
2) Part two allows to split directory tree into multiple "disks"
(folders named disk1, disk2 and so on) each having maximum specified
size. You can select one of pre-set sizes from the combo box control
or type in your own size.
Those "disk" folders can be subsequently burned to DVDs or CDs.
Once you are done with burning, you can delete "disk" folders and/or
their root folder and their contents.
Again, this won't affect source files.
Splitter takes care to keep reasonable data sequencing across disks.
Part 1 is needed as one may want to avoid burning some of the files in
SRC tree since they may have already been burned. In this case,
instead of splittig SRC to DST directly, one may copy SRC to TMP as
hard links, delete unneeded files from TMP and then split TMP into
DST, then delete TMP and burn "disk" folders from DST.
I included executable file and source code, but I did not include
dependent DLLs (MFC70, MSVCRT, MSVCR70, COMCTL32).
Enjoy.
Mendel Leisk 
, Jan 19, 2006; 03:14 p.m.
Response to Splitting directores for DVD burning
Sergey, let me also say thanks. It's mostly over my head, but I've downloaded the zip and bookmarked the page. Gotta hunch it might come in handy someday, if I can muster my brain cells ;o
Owen Hedger , Mar 21, 2006; 08:23 p.m.
Response to Splitting directores for DVD burning
Thank you for providing that, was feeling I would have to so somthing myself also. Very clever using links instead of copying files. Thanks again.
Jake W. , Apr 08, 2006; 11:12 a.m.
Response to Splitting directores for DVD burning
Thank you for this great idea. However, I just tried it and got an error message while trying to split a file. I may have misunderstood your intentions: will this utility deal only with splitting a folder containing multiple small/medium file, or also split a file which is bigger than the target DVD?
I tried, on XP SP1, to split one 10GB file on a system that had only 1GB space left on the HD and targeting it for a DVD split. The error message said "file xxx exceeds specified disk size.."
Dan Beauvais , Jun 21, 2006; 01:12 p.m.
Response to Splitting directores for DVD burning
Sergey, this is perfect! Exactly what I needed. And fast! It's clear you are a photographer and solved a photographer's problem, unlike many of the "solutions" that split image files or require a utility to read the files afterwards.
Your program allows image files copied from several flash memories to be efficiently be packed onto optical media for archiving, but still allowing for direct access.
Thank you for your kind contribution to our comunity.
Dan in Kitty Hawk
DanBeauvais.com -or- OuterBanksImages.com
Steve Bennett , Jun 22, 2006; 11:28 a.m.
Response to Splitting directores for DVD burning
Anyone interested in this subject may want to check out Archive Creator from www.pictureflow. check it out. I find it to be well worth the ~$50 cost.
Regards -
Michael Weiner , Sep 10, 2006; 07:53 p.m.
Response to Splitting directores for DVD burning
Kris Bulman , Mar 29, 2007; 01:56 p.m.
Response to Splitting directores for DVD burning
amazing, this is great.. thanks so much Sergey for this free and easy to use utility. I've successfully backed up all directories and images with ease, and then cataloged them with another utility. I've looked around for a while, and this is the best free utility for 2000/XP users. Does this work on Vista too?
Joshua Borton , Jun 23, 2007; 11:48 a.m.
Response to Splitting directores for DVD burning
Wonderful program! It was a little annoying tracking down those DLLs, but thats micro$ofts fault, not yours. I can confirm that it works perfectly in Vista as long as your source directory does not already contain hard links (Vista uses them alot more than XP)
Deio Z , Feb 02, 2008; 11:25 p.m.
Hi Sergey,
Thank you sooo much for this wonderful little helper utility! I had no idea that Hard Links even existed in NTFS! They are so much more useful than .lnk shortcut files, and you are a mighty smart person to come up with this creative way of using NTFS hard links to achieve the purpose of spanning a data backup onto multiple DVDs.
Anyway, I have a question for you: Is Step 1 necessary, or is it really optional? From what I see, unless I need to exclude some of the files from my backup, I can jump straight to Step 2 to directly split the original folder's content into a set of "disk" folders. Correct? Step 2, much like Step 1, creates its output structure through the use of Hard Links, right? So in theory we should be able to use Step 2 alone without going through Step 1. Isn't this true?
-Deioz
