Newbie Q: Interrupted Torrent

While I was at work today my home network went down and I lost my Internet connection on the PC that was downloading a file. I had been downloading for a couple of days and was getting near the end, but I definitely didn't get the whole thing. I went back to the torrent link on your website to begin the torrent again thinking that it would start up where it left off, but when I clicked on the link I got a message saying that a file with that name already exists and it begins to torrent the file all over again. Do I have to begin the whole process all over again?

Thanks for your help.

[Ted]

Ooh, sorry to hear that.

You didn't have to download the torrent file again. All you had to do was open your BT client and start up that particular download again. Now that you already started downloading again from the beginning, I'm pretty sure you'll have to get it all over again unless you happen to have the incomplete files from the first download attempt. This depends on your client too and how it keeps track of the incomplete downloads.

Mine overwrited them when starting over (Shareaza - and I don't recommend it for torrents)

What BT client do you use? Maybe someone else can tell whether or not there's a way to recover/resume from where you left off.

Yes I'm afraid that when your client closes like that you have to start all over again

Ok, just kidding.

I don't know what client you are using (although it sounds like BitTornado or the official client), but basically, when you start it up again you have to tell it to save the downloaded data in the folder you were saving it to when it crashed. And you don't have to download the .torrent file again. You can save those files so that you can open your client again.

EDIT: Ted you damn lurker, you ruined my joke

[Ted]

Sorry, It's Lynne's fault. If she hadn't asked me to look at something, I wouldn't have been here at this time.

Thanks for the help. I'm using the "Bit Torrent" 4.0.0 client. When I try to use the "Open Torrent" command, I can't see any files to open. The download has created two folders. The first is about 4.3 GB and all of the .VOB files in it are pretty big, so it looks like it's done (files have the following extensions: .BUP, .IFO, and .VOB and one .md5). The second folder has one big .VOB file and the others are all 0 KB. So, it looks like I have files, but the client doesn't see them. Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks again for your help. This is my second download and I'm still trying to get the hang.

[Ted]

I'm not famlilar with that client and how it stores downloads. What I'd do, if you have the hard drive space, is COPY those two folders to a temporary location until you get this figured out. That way, you won't lose the files accidentally. After you get the whole show, you can then delete the copy.

The reason the one folder is so large is because you said you nearly downloaded the show in full. The other 0 KB files are the ones you're mising and still need to download.

ONLY IF you've copied the folders (I hope you had the room), open your client and look at the options for where it might say where you want the downloaded files to be saved. Point it to the original two folders that you made a copy of. You may need to use the "Open Torrent" command to get the option to specify the place to save. According to uhclem, that should do it - and I agree (not that I would know better, mind you) - it just makes sense. If you were not able to copy the files, please wait for a definite solution so you don't have to start from the beginning again because of an error in the instructions.

[TheMamba]

Originally Posted by uhclem

I don't know what client you are using (although it sounds like BitTornado or the official client), but basically, when you start it up again you have to tell it to save the downloaded data in the folder you were saving it to when it crashed. And you don't have to download the .torrent file again. You can save those files so that you can open your client again.

Ditto.

What I do is save the torrent file (that's the small one you download off the forums) to my desktop so they are easy to find so I don't have to redownload it.

Just open up that torrent file and point it at the folder where your first download was and your client will check to see what files/pieces are there and which aren't and pick up where you left off.

This is the great thing about BT is that you can start/stop at any point and resume later on, right where you left off.

Ted: The main BT client stores shows just like any other client - right where you tell it to.

[Ted]

Originally Posted by TheMamba

Ted: The main BT client stores shows just like any other client - right where you tell it to.

Yes, but sometimes under certain conditions, I've heard of people losing their prorgess because the BT client started the download from the beginning. I just wanted to make sure this didn't happen here - especially since he already had most of the download (and a large one at that). Doesn't hurt to be safe.